Sonjo language

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Sonjo ke-temi
Spoken in:	Tanzania
Region:	Arusha Region, Ngorongoro District, near the Kenyan border
Total speakers:	30,000 (2002 SIL)
Language family:	Niger-Congo  Atlantic-Congo   Volta-Congo    Benue-Congo     Bantoid      Southern Bantoid       Narrow Bantu        Central         E          Sonjo
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	bnt
ISO 639-3:	soz
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Sonjo is a Bantu language spoken in northern Tanzania, 30-40 miles west of Lake Natron. Ethnolinguistically, it is a displaced member of Guthrie’s E50 group, most other members of which are found in Central Kenya. Within that group, it is most closely related to Gikuyu. The Sonjo people number about 30,000 (2002 SIL); many of them are bilingual in Swahili, the local language of education. Sonjo is largely undescribed.

The Sonjo have lived for centuries as an isolated enclave in Maasai territory. They are known for their use of irrigation systems in agriculture, a rare trait which causes some historians to link them to the hitherto unexplained ruined irrigation systems of Engaruka, 60 miles to the southeast. The term Sonjo is the name given to the people by the Maasai; they call themselves ba-temi and their language ke-temi or gi-temi. Apart from inevitable Maasai (Eastern Nilotic) influence, Sonjo shows influence from Chaga (Bantu E40), various Southern Cushitic languages, and from Southern Nilotic. The Southern Cushitic influence has been attributed to an ancestral Ma'a or Dahalo community, while the Southern Nilotic traits most probably come from Datooga.

[edit] References

• Nurse, Derek & Franz Rottland. 1991. ‘Sonjo: Description, Classification, History’, in Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, 12/13, 171-289.