Nandi (Naanti)

Nandi is a member of the Kalenjin group of Southern Nilotic languages. It is spoken by about 950,000 people in Nandi, Uasin Gishu and Trans-Nzoia counties in the highland areas of Rift Valley Province in western Kenya.

Nandi is also known as Cemual, Naandi or Naanti. It is spoken by the Nandi people, and also by the Terik people, who speak a closely related language. In addition, it is closely related to Datooga and Omotik, which are spoken in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya.

Nandi is written with the Latin alphabet, and several spelling systems have been used since the early 20th century. Publications in and about the language include a grammar, dictionary and collections of folklore.

Nandi alphabet

Download an alphabet chart for Nandi (Excel)
Details of the Nandi alphabet (PDF) provided by Wolfram Siegel.

Notes

Nandi has a vowel harmony system in which words contain either the vowels sounds [a], [e], [i], [o] and [u], or [ɑ], [ɛ], [ɪ], [ɔ] and [ʊ]. These vowel sounds are not usually distinguished in writing, except a and ö.
Nandi has a high tone, a high falling tone, a low falling tone and a low tone. These are not usually indicated in writing.

Some riddles in Nandi

A-tinye cheptan-nyo ne-piiy-onyi mutai ko-rukut lakat. Kweyot.
I have a daughter who gets a good meal every morning, but she goes to bed hungry at night. Answer = A broom (huts are swept out every morning)

I-ie tururik annan i-ie che-tililin.
Do you prefer water made dirty (by the feet of oxen) or clean water? I prefer the dirty water (as I should then own cattle).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naandi_language#Oral_literature

Sample videos in and about Nandi

Links

Information about Nandi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naandi_language
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandi_(langue)
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ナンディ語
 https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nand1266
https://archive.org/details/nanditheirlangua00holl
https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnand00crei
http://www.language-archives.org/language/niq

Nilotic languages

Acholi, Adhola, Alur, Anuak, Ateso, Bari, Belanda Bor, Datooga, Dholuo, Dinka, Dongotono, Kakwa, Karamojong, Keiyo, Kipsigis, Kupsabiny, Lango (South Sudan), Lango (Uganda), Lopit, Lotuko, Maasai, Mandari, Markwet, Nandi, Nuer, Terik, Toposa, Turkana

Languages written with the Latin alphabet

Page created: 12.11.24. Last modified: 13.11.24

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