| Karamojong | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Uganda |
| Region | Karamoja, Moroto District |
| Native speakers | 370,000 (date missing) |
| Language family |
Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kdj |
The Karamojong Language (ŋaKarimojoŋ, ŋaKaramojoŋ, Karimojong or Ngakarimojong) is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken mainly in the Karamoja subregion of north-eastern Uganda.
The tongue ŋaKarimojoŋ is a Nilotic language of the Nilo-Saharan language family (Encyclopædia Britannica) spoken by at least 370,000 people in Uganda – the ŋiKarimojoŋ (or ŋiKaramojoŋ) people. The name approximates to "the old men sat down", dating from a time of migration 300 or more years ago when this group refused to travel further on (to what is now Teso). They are a cattle-keeping people practising transhumance which is reflected in the language as are their traditional religious beliefs; settled cultivation is relatively recent and thus words associated with this are usually borrowed from neighbouring languages or from languages introduced by, or as a result of, colonialism – English, Luganda, Swahili. Modern technical words come from these latter also.
Closely related languages and dialects are spoken by many more peoples including the Jie, ŋiDodos, iTeso (Uganda), ŋiTurkana, iTesyo (Kenya), Jiye, ŋiToposa, (southern Sudan), also by at least one tribe in Ethiopia.
These peoples are part of the "Karimojong Cluster" of Nilotic tribes (also known by some as the Teso Cluster).
ŊaKarimojoŋ is a verb-initial language. Verb forms differ in aspect rather than tense; first person plural personal and possessive pronouns have both inclusive and exclusive forms (noted from Burningham 1994? in http://www.tyndale.org/TSJ/8/burningham.html). Nouns and pronouns have gender prefixes, which can change meaning, eg ekitoi (m) means tree or medicine obtained from a tree / bush, akitoi (f) means log or firewood, and ikitoi (n) means twigs used for lighting cooking fires. The neuter often implies a diminutive – edia means boy and idia means little boy. There are no articles.
Pronunciation is phonetic (similar to Spanish), except as otherwise noted. There are no letters "F", "H" "Q", "X" or "Z" (but see next paragraph). "Ŋ" (or "ng" – as in "singing") and "Ny" are single consonants in their own right. Sometimes "P" sounds more like "F" in English (so, when learning English, ŋaKarimojoŋ speakers sometimes confuse these sounds). "L" and "R" are NOT confused. There is tendency to mouthe a silent "O" or "U" on the end of some words ending with consonants. Adjacent vowels are usually pronounced without diphthongs.
The Roman alphabet is used, orthography rules were established by Missionaries in the 1960s. These rules varied slightly between the mainly British Anglicans and the mainly Italian Roman Catholics (RC). The most obvious example of this is the sound which is halfway between an "S" as in "sausage" and" th" as in "think". This was tendered by the Anglicans as "th" and the RCs as "z". These days both "s" and "th" are used, "z" rarely.
Rules also varied also between different people writing down different languages in Uganda / East Africa. For example, most Nilotic languages in and around Uganda spell the sound 'ch' as in church "c", whereas in the Bantu languages, at least in Uganda (and excluding kiSwahili), this sound is spelled "ky" (as in Burmese).
There is some confusion between the use of "I" and "Y" where there is a vowel following. The general tendency is to assume that the "Y" sound comes from the conjunction of the vowels rather than being a separate letter, but not exclusively. But sometimes there are very similar words with different meanings : 'Edia' means 'boy', 'edya' however means 'vegetables' and any difference in pronunciation has more to do with tone and stress than with the "y". Somewhat differently, 'akimat' means 'old woman', or, 'to drink'. If you say 'acamit ayoŋ akimat' you are saying you want the old woman rather than you want to drink, so in this case the infinitive is rather oddly replaced by the vocative, thus 'acamit ayoŋ tomat' to avoid confusion when you need a drink.
Almost all plural nouns are pre-fixed with 'ŋa' (f) or 'ŋi' (m & n). Special uses of these can be seen above for the language and people. There are generally suffixes on plural nouns which, to the learner at least, have little regularity, for example 'emong / ŋimongin' – 'ox / oxen' and 'akai / ŋakais' - 'house/s', or even removal of last letter, thus 'emoru / ŋimor' – 'mountain/s' and 'aberu / ŋaber(u)' – 'woman / women'.
Most traditionally known liquids such as water (ŋakipi) and milk (ŋakile) are feminine plural (though the eng prefix has been lost in some dialects) whereas more recently introduced liquids such as (bottled) beer – 'ebiya' are masculine singular. Male names mostly begin with "Lo" whilst female names begin with "Na", thus Lokiru and Nakiru are a boy and a girl born at the time of rain. In other Nilotic languages in the region, this rule applies without the "L" and "N".
Some common words and phrases:
The main books written in the language are the New Testament, published in significantly different Anglican and RC versions in the 1960s, and a joint one published in the early 1990s. More recently there have been some educational books and there are various grammars and dictionaries produced mainly by Roman Catholic religious. The Old Testament is in process with a number of books already completed.
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