Taita language

Taita
Kidaw'ida
Native to Kenya
Ethnicity Taita people
Native speakers
 (400,000 cited 1992 – 2009 census)[1]
Dialects
  • Taveta
  • Sagala
  • Kasigau
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Variously:
dav – Taita
tvs – Taveta
tga – Sagala
Glottolog tait1249  Taita–Sagalla[2]
tave1240  Taveta[3]
E.74,741 (G.21)[4]

Taita, or Daw'ida, is a Bantu language spoken in the Taita Hills of Kenya. It is closely related to the Chaga languages of Kenya and Tanzania. The Taveta language was erroneously re-classified by Jouni Maho (2009) as Daw'ida, however it is lexically and grammatically closest to Chasu (Pare). The Saghala (Northern Sagala, Sagalla) variety is distinct enough to be considered a language separate from Dawida.[4]

The Daw'ida and Saghala varieties of Taita contain loanwords from two different South Cushitic languages, called Taita Cushitic, which are now extinct.[5] It is likely that the Cushitic speakers were assimilated fairly recently, since lateral obstruents in the loanwords were still pronounced as such within living memory. However, those consonants have now been replaced by Bantu sounds.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Taita at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Taveta at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Sagala at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Taita–Sagalla". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Taveta". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. 1 2 Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  5. ↑ Gabriele Sommer, Matthias Brenzinger (ed.) (1992). Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference - "A survey of language death in Africa". Walter de Gruyter. pp. 392–394. ISBN 3110870606.
  6. ↑ Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, Fritz Serzisko (ed.) (1988). Cushitic-Omotic: Papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic Languages, Cologne, January 6-9, 1986. Buske Verlag. p. 99. ISBN 3871188905.


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