A Word Geography of Faunal Terminology in Maa (East Africa)

Schriften zur Afrikanistik / Research in African Studies

Herausgegeben von / Edited by Rainer Vossen und / and Georg Ziegelmeyer

Volume 32

To our consultants and the Maa-speaking community as a whole with deeply felt gratitude

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Abbreviations

3. Bibliography

4. The data

   1. A. Non-domestic animals

      1. Mammals

      2. Birds

      3. Reptiles

      4. Amphibians

      5. Insects

      6. Others

   2. B. Domestic animals

   3. C. Other fauna-related vocabulary

5. List of common forms (in alphabetical order)

6. Word-geographical maps

Introduction

The present study is an attempt at a selective word geography of Maa varieties as spoken in Kenya and Tanzania (East Africa), an area extending – from north to south – over a distance of approximately 1,000 kilometres. The Maa-speaking peoples are commonly and collectively known as “Maasai” but, strictly speaking, this name represents only part – even though the larger portion – of the population whose size may roughly be estimated at around one million persons. Genetically speaking, the Maa language is a member of the Eastern branch of Nilotic and as such belongs within the socalled Nilo-Saharan language phylum as established by Greenberg (1963).

In principle, the chief aim of word-geographical research work is to examine linguistic dia-systems “whose components are related dialects existing side by side in a given area [translation from the German is ours]” (Goossens 1969: 22). More specifically, it proceeds from the geographical distribution of words/lexemes and their characteristics, which in a main step is to be mapped as accurately as possible and may later become subject to linguistic-historical interpretation (cf. Vossen 1988). In this book, however, we strictly confine ourselves to the geographical aspect of lexical diversification. Furthermore, we restrict this investigation (for reason of economy) to the semantic domain of animals, both wild and domestic, as well as items and concepts related to them. Within the lexicon of Maa, zoonymy (in a wider sense) appears to be particularly interesting for mainly two – intertwined – reasons: First and quite surprisingly, for numerous lexical entries in our glossary we note a considerable number of Maa equivalents to a single item in the meta-languages English and Swahili; and second, in the reverse case, there also exist a remarkable number of individual Maa terms with various meanings in the meta-languages. It goes without saying, however, that our presentation of animal names cannot lay claim to completeness because of the enormous richness of zoological differentiation that exists in East Africa (and beyond). Given this, the amount of names we have taken into consideration rather appears fairly limited.

This study is based exclusively on data collected by Rainer Vossen during extended field trips in 1976/77. It therefore describes, first of all, the situation of that time although the degree of semantic change that has or may have taken place over following decades may be assumed to be low, as comparison of forms with published sources (see below) would seem to suggest. Two wordlists consisting of altogether more than 1,200 lexical items were used as research instruments. One of these lists had been applied throughout the Language and Dialect Atlas of Kenya project, conducted by Bernd Heine and Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig in the 1970s and early 1980s. The other one was compiled by Rainer Vossen (1976) with a focus on cultural and social phenomena in Maa society. Data elicitation was performed by using audio cassettes which had later on been transcribed step by step.

The organization of this book is pretty simple. Subsequent to this introductory section lists of abbreviations and bibliographical references will be presented. The centrepiece begins with the lexical data sets which are divided into “Non-domestic animals” (A., 99 items), “Domestic animals” (B., 22 items) and “Other fauna-related vocabulary” (C., 29 items). Part A is further subdivided into Mammals (44), Birds (17), Reptiles (10), Amphibians (1), Insects (20), and Others (7). All sets take English glosses as a starting point and are arranged in alphabetical order within each category. Since Maa glosses frequently have different English equivalents, as mentioned above, data presentation is reversed in the next section by using Maa common forms as point of departure. Word geographies cannot do without maps, the central methodological instrument, showing the geographical distribution of lexical forms. These make up the final section of this study.

The internal structuring of data sets is as follows. In a handful of cases, English glosses are accompanied by an alternative meaning in square brackets, e.g. (A.25) ‘jackal’ [fox] or (B.18) ‘pig’ [swine], resulting from the language use of consultants. Scientific (Latin) names are added in parentheses whenever zoological identification seemed safe or possible to some degree of certainty. These may relate to varying hierarchical grades within zoological taxonomy.

The data as such are provided throughout under six subheadings: a. Number of Maa equivalents to the English gloss; b. Number of Maa varieties taking part in the pattern of distribution; c. Common forms and their reflexes in Maa varieties; d. Exclusive occurrence of common forms, i.e. lexemes which were found to be used in just one Maa variety; e. Comment on the geographical pattern of distribution of common forms; and f. Literature, i.e. reference to published sources which sometimes suggest a semantic allocation differing from the information we received from our consultants. Here, we have decided to restrict ourselves to standard dictionaries and glossaries, namely: Heine (1980, for Camus), Mol (1978, 1996), and Tucker & ole Mpaayei (1955). For general cross-checking, however, readers are advised to consult Payne & Ole-Kotikash’s (2008) online dictionary.