The eastern Nilotes: linguistics and historical reconstructions

THE LANGUAGES INVOLVED

ry schoPl teacher was born and grew up in Igara, where the inter-
views took place.

7.1.10. Turkana (Tu)

The most comprehensive description of tu with regard to both
grammar and vocabulary has just been published by B. Heine (1980b)
Here, use of his material was made throughout; nevertheless,
since Heine's tu vocabulary does not meet all requirements of
the word-list on which my comparative analysis is based, I have
attempted to fill in the missing pieces during a visit to Turka-
naland in August 1977. Additional lexical data were offered by
G. Dimmendaal, University of Leiden, The Netherlands, who studied
the Tu language in the field for more than 18 months, and whom I
hold for much more competent on this subject than 1 myself will
ever be. In few cases only are data taken from Barton's (1921-23)
contribution.

According to Heine (1980b: 39), Tu was spoken by over 200,000
people in 1969. When comparing this figure with Tucker & Bryan
(1956:110) who give c. 85,000 speakers, the high population
growth rate (which is, however, the lowest in Kenya [Heine, loc.
cit.]) becomes obvious, and one may get an idea of what the oth-
er figures quoted from Tucker & Bryan (1956), for example for
the BARI languages (above), are like today. The Turkana's own
name for their language is ija-turk (*')ana (Heine, loc. cit.).

In collecting my own data I was assisted by Mr. Jackson T a -
r it , then 19 years old, born in Silale, grown up in Kapedo;
Mr. Ignatius Lokitare , then 22 years old, born and grown
up in Lorugumu; and Mr. Kito W u s i, then approx. 28-30 years
old, born and grown up in Loarengak. Mr. Tarit and Mr, Lokitare
were also informants of B. Heine (loc. cit.).

7.1.11. Dongotono (Do}

The Dongotono people call this so-called LOTUKO dialect
aoQotono . No exact figure is known, but Tucker & Bryan give ap-
proximately 4,000 speakers for "Lango", including Logir and do~

165

R^daktion: Rainer Vo0en

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
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Vossen, Rainer:

The eastern Nilotcs: linguist, and histor.
reconstructions / von Rainer Vossen. - Berlin:
Rcimer, 1982,

(Kolner Beitrage zur Afrikanistik; 9)

ISBN 3-496-00698-6 brosch.;

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