Rendille (language)

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Rendille

Spoken in

KenyaKenya Kenya
speaker 60,000 (as of 2009)
Linguistic
classification
Language codes
ISO 639-3

rel

Rendille (alternative names are Rendili , Rendile or Randile ) is an Afro-Asian language from the family of Cushitic languages , belonging to the East Cushitic lowland languages. It is spoken by the ethnic group of the same name, Rendille, with around 60,000 speakers in the north of Kenya .

Rendille is related to the Afar , Oromo and Somali languages. However, the relationship is not very close.

The current ethnic groups, Rendille, Gabbra , Garre and Sakuye , formed a common linguistically and culturally related group called Proto-Rendille-Somali or Somaloid until around the end of the 15th century . From the 16th century onwards they were ousted or joined by Borana - Oromo and adopted their language. The ancestors of today's Rendille also took over cultural elements of the Borana, but their own language was retained among them.

The language is considered to be in danger of being replaced by either the official languages ​​of Kenya or a Nilotic language . The southern Rendille or Ariaal speak Maa , the language of the neighboring Samburu , often almost as well or even better than the language of their own ethnic group further north. On the other hand, according to recent estimates, the number of Rendille speakers is currently increasing again.

literature

  • Steve Pillinger Letiwa Galboran ,: A Rendille Dictionary . Including a Grammatical Outline and an English-Rendille Index (= Cushitic Language Studies  . Volume 14 ). Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-89645-061-1 (English).
  • Bernd Heine : The Sam Languages. A History of Rendille, Boni and Somali . In: Afroasiatic Linguistics . tape 6 , Issue 2. Undena Publications, 1978, pp. 1-92 .
  • Günther Schlee , Karaba Sahado: Rendille proverbs in their social and legal context. (= Word art and documentary texts in African languages. 15). Köppe, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-89645-271-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rendille . In: Ethnologue - Languages ​​of the World ; Retrieved June 21, 2013
  2. ↑ Ethnonymes et toponymes africains. Unesco 1984, ISBN 92-3-201944-2 , p. 187 ( unesco.org PDF; 8.8 MB); Retrieved June 22, 2013.
  3. ↑ 2009 Population & Housing Census Results. Kenya Census 2009, p. 35 (PDF; 1.7 MB), accessed on June 22, 2013.
  4. ^ A b John A. Shoup: Ethnic Groups of Africa and the Middle East: An Encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO, 2011, ISBN 1-59884-362-1 , p. 249 (English).
  5. ↑ Review: Rainer Voigt: Zum Rendille. In: Anthropos. Volume 96, Issue 2, 2001, ISSN  0257-9774 , pp. 590-598. ( JSTOR Stable URL ). Retrieved June 22, 2013.