Kwavi dialect

Kwavi
Spoken in	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Kwavi people
Native speakers	30,000  (date missing)
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic Eastern Nilotic Lotuxo-Teso Lotuxo-Maa Maa Maasai Kwavi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mas

Kwavi is the dialect of Maasai spoken by the Kwavi people (aka Parakuyo or Baraguyu) of Tanzania. It was formerly listed as "unclassified" by the Ethnologue, which corrected this mistake in the 15th edition by incorporating it in Maasai.

According to Hurskainen (1994), "The Parakuyo (earlier also called Ilparakuyo, Baraguyu, Kwavi, Lumbwa, and Iloikop) are a Maa-speaking ethnic group scattered over a large area in the northeastern and central parts of Tanzania", while Beidelman (1960) confirms that "Kwavi" and "Baraguyu" are synonymous.

Bibliography

• T.O. Beidelman. "The Baraguyu", in Tanganyika notes and records, 1960, no. 55, p. 244–278.
• Arvi Hurskainen. "Plant taxonomy of the Parakuyo (Tanzania)" in Nordic Journal of African Studies, 1994, vol. 3, no. 2, p. 117–162
• Karsten Legère. 2002. The "Languages of Tanzania" Project: background, resources and perspectives. Africa and Asia, No. 2, 2002.

External links

• Maasai on Ethnologue, 15th edition
• Kwavi on Ethnologue, 14th edition