Turkana language

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Turkana
Ng'aturk(w)ana
Spoken in Kenya
Region Northwest Kenya, west of Lake Turkana
Total speakers 340,000
Language family Nilo-Saharan
Language codes
ISO 639-1 None
ISO 639-2 ssa
ISO 639-3 tuv

Turkana is the language of the Turkana people of Kenya, numbering about 340,000.

It is one of the Eastern Nilotic languages, and is closely related to Karamojong, Jie and Teso of Uganda, to Toposa spoken in the extreme southeast of Sudan, and to Nyangatom in the Sudan/Ethiopia Omo valley borderland; these languages together form the cluster of Teso-Turkana languages.

The collective group name for these related group is ateker.

[edit] Selected Vocabulary

English Turkana
face ereet(s) ngireetin(pl)
body akwan(s) ngawat(pl)
clothes eworu(s) ngiworui(pl)
food akimuj(s) ngamuja(pl)
tobacco etaba
goat akine(s) ngakinei(pl)
cattle aite(s) ngaatuk(pl)
donkey esikiria(s) ngisikiria(pl)
camel ekaal(s) ngikaala(pl)
water ngakipi

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links