Sabaot language

Sabaot
Sebei
Native to Kenya/Uganda
Region Mount Elgon
Ethnicity Sabaot people/Sebei people
Native speakers
 240,000 (2009 census)[1]
Dialects
  • Bong’omeek (Bong’om)
  • Koony (Kony)
  • Book (Pok)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 spy
Glottolog saba1262[2]

Sabaot (Sebei) is a Kalenjin language of Kenya. The Sabaot people live around Mount Elgon in both Kenya and Uganda. The hills of their homeland gradually rise from an elevation of 5,000 to 14,000 feet. The Kenya-Uganda border goes straight through the mountain-top, cutting the Sabaot homeland into two halves.

Grammar

Typical of Nilotic languages, Sabaot uses advanced tongue root (ATR) to express some morphological operations:

kɔ̀ɔmnyɔɔnɔɔté
Morphemes:ka-a-mnyaan-aa-tɛ-ATR
Gloss:PAST-1SG-be.sick-STAT-DIR-IMPERF
Translation:"I went being sick (but I am not sick now)."
káámnyáánáátɛ́
Morphemes:ka-a-mnyaan-aa-tɛ
Gloss:PAST-1SG-be.sick-STAT-DIR
Translation:"I became sick while going away (and I'm still sick)."[3]

References

Sabaot SIDO Website:[4]

  1. ↑ Sabaot at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sabaot". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Payne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 29
  4. ↑ http://www.sabaots.com
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