Markweta (Markweeta) is a Kalenjin language of Kenya. The regional terms Endo and Sambirir (or the clan name Talai) have been used for northern and southern Markweta, but they are not distinct dialects. The unmarked word order is Verb–subject–object.
Markweta | |
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Native to | Kenya |
Ethnicity | Marakwet |
Native speakers | 180,000 (2009 census)[1] |
Language family | Nilo-Saharan?
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Dialects |
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | enb |
Glottolog | mark1255 |
Markweta has five basic vowels: /a, e, i, o, u/. All vowels have variants based on tongue root position and length, for a total of 20 distinct vowel phonemes.
The vowels /o:/ and /a:/ are both pronounced like /ɔ:/, and can only be distinguished by looking at affixes.[2]
Markweta has 13 consonants:
Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
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Stop | p | t | c | k |
Fricative | s | |||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ |
Approximant | l | j | w | |
Trill | r |
Markweta has gender. Gender is realized as a prefix added primarily for person nouns and animal names, but sometimes inanimate objects.
The prefixes 'kaa-' and 'kii-' are used to indicate nominalization.
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Part of the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Italics indicate extinct languages |
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