Maasai Language Guide

Also spoken in
Kenya, Tanzania
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

Payne describes Maa as a language or language group with several varieties, all known as "Maa". She describes it as spoken by Maasai, Samburu and Camus people in Kenya and by Arusa, Kisonko and IlParakuyo people in Tanzania, and says that the variety described on her pages is southern Kenyan Maasai.

Payne notes that dialects may differ in which consonant sounds they have, and gives Arusa Maa as lacking c and p.

Payne also distinguishes the language from ethnicity: scholars have argued that modern Maa is spoken as a first language not only by ethnic Maa peoples but also by members of some other groups that assimilated to Maa language and culture.

The Constitution of Kenya names Kiswahili as the national language, and Kiswahili and English as the official languages. It also says the State shall promote and protect the diversity of language of the people of Kenya and promote the development and use of indigenous languages.

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Script & pronunciation

Maa is written with Latin letters. In the Maa Bible text on bible.com, John 4:7 begins Nelotu enkitok e Samaria aoku enkare, and a second Maa version of the same verse begins Nelotu eng'oroyoni nabo e Samaria aoku engare, so the word in the same place in the verse is spelled enkare in one version and engare in the other.

Payne's scholarly description writes the Maa sounds with extra letters: the sound written ŋ corresponds to the sound written ng' in Swahili, and Maa has nine vowels, written i e o u ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ a, where i e o u and ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ form four pairs that differ in the position of the tongue root, and a is described as neutral. Payne also says that tone can change the meaning of a word. The second Maa Bible version above writes the word eng'oroyoni with ng'.

This app's Maasai cards use only plain Latin letters, such as the card for "Thank you very much", Ashe oleng. They carry no tone marks and no romanization line, and the cards' text contains none of the extra vowel letters ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ. The card for "No", A'a, has an apostrophe inside the word, and its usage note says to keep it when writing.

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Grammar essentials

Payne says that the most neutral way to build a Maa sentence is in the order verb (or predicate), subject, first object, second object, adverbial. She adds that the order of subject and object can vary without confusion, because nouns are marked for case, and in Maa case is shown solely by the tone pattern on the noun.

According to Payne, the Maa verb obligatorily indicates tense-aspect and the person of the subject (and, with two participants, of the object), and can also indicate a negative. Her examples contrast 1SG.SUBJ-love, glossed "I love it/him/her/them", with NEGATIVE-1SG.SUBJ-love, glossed "I don't love it/him/her/them", where the negative is a prefix m-. The Maa Online Dictionary gives the sentence Mayíólo as "I do not know". The app's card for "I don't know", Mayiolo, describes ma- as the negative prefix. The app's card for "I, me", Nanu, says that the person is also marked on the verb, so the pronoun is dropped except for stress or contrast.

Payne says that Maa nouns indicate grammatical gender, number and case, and that gender is masculine or feminine, or very rarely place. In her examples masculine gender is used for things that are biologically masculine or large, as in ol-dóínyó "mountain", and feminine gender for biologically feminine and small items, as in en-dóínyó "small mountain, hill". The app's cards for "This (masculine thing)", Ele, and "This (feminine thing)", Ena, give different forms of "this" for masculine and feminine singular nouns, and note the prefixes ol- (masculine) and en- (feminine).

Payne says there are about twelve different singular-plural classes, that the forms are quite irregular and must simply be memorized, and that sometimes the stem changes, as in en-kítéŋ "cow" and in-kíshú "cows".

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Politeness & etiquette

The Maa Online Dictionary lists sʉ́pa as a greeting addressed to a man (with notes on varying use in some areas) and takúɛ́nya as a greeting addressed to a woman; the app's cards write these in plain letters as Supa and Takuenya. The dictionary adds that in some areas an older woman will use sʉ́pa when greeting a younger woman, while in other areas an older woman will use takúɛ́nya, and it gives the response to sʉ́pa as ɨ́pa, which the app's card writes Ipa. In its example Apáayîâ lɛnyɛ́, sʉ́pa(i), the dictionary says it is somewhat odd or rude to leave out lɛnyɛ́, which is like a title used for someone unknown, in place of a name or title. The dictionary also describes ŋasák as the initiation of a greeting sequence, started by a younger person who bows his or her head to an older person, and says that in the normal situation the older person always initiates the verbal greeting exchange.

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