Samburu language

Samburu
Sampur, ɔl Maa
Native to Kenya
Region Samburu district of Rift Valley Province
Native speakers
240,000 (2009 census)[1]
(including Camus)
Nilo-Saharan?
Dialects
  • Camus
Language codes
ISO 639-3 saq
Glottolog samb1315[2]

Samburu is the Eastern Nilotic, North Maa language spoken by the Samburu in the highlands of northern Kenya. The Samburu number about 128,000 (or 147,000 including the Camus/Chamus). Samburu is closely related to Camus (88% to 94% lexical similarity; Camus is sometimes considered a Samburu dialect) and to the South Maa language Maasai (77% to 89% lexical similarity). The word Samburu itself derives from the old Maa word 'saamburr' for the leather bag the Samburu use.

References

  1. Samburu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Samburu". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.


Several different tribes in Kenya use this language, The Ilchamus, for example.

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