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Historical African Languages Database (HALD)

Vocabulary of the Enguduk Iloigob, as Spoken by the Masai-Tribes in East-Africa (1857)

This is a dictionary of the Maa language spoken by Maasai peoples

Figure 1. J. Erhardt

Brief Notes on Language

Maa is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken by around 1.5 million people in Eastern Africa. Jakob Erhardt labeled it Enguduk(the language) of the Iloigib, which is more commonly rendered Loikop in English. In a preface written by Johannes Krapf (who worked with Erhardt as a missionary in Rabai and Mombasa), the people who spoke this language are identified as Maasai and their language as kiMasai. Krapf distinguished this people and language from the Kwavi, whose language he documented in an 1854 Kikwavi dictionary. Both languages are now regarded as dialects of Maa.

Maa is referenced as:

mas in Ethnologue (https://www.ethnologue.com/language/mas/)

As a Nilotic language, Maa does not appear in Maho’s updated Guthrie Classification Codes or Bantu languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_language

Language Sources

According to Krapf, Erhardt collected most of his vocabulary from Swahili traders and "Natives of various African tribes" on the East African coast, rather than travelling into the interior where the primary speakers of the language lived.

Editorial Notes

Krapf notes there are discrepancies between his knowledge of Kwavi and Erhardt's record of Iloigib, but could not authoritatively say who was correct. The only major change he claims to have made to the dictionary was to adopt the standard alphabet of Dr. Lepsius, which is based on the Latin alphabet but with many diacritics.

Type of Language Resource

This is a bilingual dictionary, with a Maa-English section followed by an English-Maa section. Entries include singular and plural forms or Maa nouns, parts of speech, sentence length definitions, and some cultural and grammatical comments by Erhardt.

ENTRY TEMPLATE Maa-English

[headword,] [particle] [(notes on particle)] [part of speech abbreviation {(note on part of speech)}] [definition. (notes on definition.)] [notes on plural] [notes on derivation] [{part of speech} sample phrase] [sample phrase translation.]

Figure 2 Template notes

Minimal Examples

ákwi, s. (without article) grandfather. akwilái my grandfather.

ēo. yes. (female reply.)

gol, a. to be healthy strong, vigorous. prf. adagólo (o)gol adj. masc. (na)gol adj. fem. Strong.

góre, e. s. grumbling, wrath. v. ádagóre to be — angry — to be wrath.

gudukáji. s. house-door. (lit. the mouth of the house) From eng-uduk mouth & and eng-áji house.

nalunlúnga, (part.) adj. Fem. healthy, well.

Maximal Examples

áiu, en. lit. the bearing or bringing to life, pro genitress, mother. pl. in áiu. In form, this word is the fem. participle of the present tense with the article. By this name a mother is made mention of after her death. Every person’s name is changed after death, from the superstitious belief, that he would make his appearance and trouble the survivors if called by the name he bore ; to avoid all unpleasantness of that kind, the names are changed, the departed not knowing what their new appellations are, can rest in quietness. The greatest insult to a Masai is, to mention in his presence his departed friends by their former name ; such a one he will never let unrevenged.

áji, eng. house. or rather hut, consisting of a frame work of wood, covered with raw hides. pl. ing ájijik. this house-enáhi, not as it regularly out to be enagáji.

di, a. to be. prf. adidúo to have been. idiáji? art thou at home? nadiaji. I am at home. ēdorldungnáni súbad, he is not a good man.

dódu, a. to lift off the fire – take away. v. n. to disappear, vanish. Imp. dadódu ; endadódu. prf. adadóduo.

ENTRY TEMPLATE English-Maa

[headword, {notes on headword,}] [part of speech abbreviation] [either: {notes on headword —} or {(notes on headword)}] [translation.] [notes on plural] [sample phrase] [sample phrase translation. {notes on translation}]

Figure 2 Template notes

Minimal Examples

abdomen, s. eng-ošóke. pl. Ingoišua.

able, v. to be. a-idim. prf. aidima.

again, adv. si. uóu si — come again.

Maximal Examples

alike, v. n. to be — a-uána. prf. adiwána. In kisuaheli ku-fanána.

boy, s. orl-barnódi. pl. ilbarnòd. lit. the calabash-scraper. on these young members of the imboidan lie all the menial services for the ilmuràn, for whom they must fetch water, fuel etc. An orlbarnódi has already joined the warriors.

mkuafi, s. (as he calls himself) orl-oigob. pl. iloigob.

Abbreviations

We have often expanded abbreviations in the database. However, users consulting the images may find the abbreviations table below helpful.

Other Abbreviations

Bantu Noun Class Treatment

There are no Noun Classes in Nilotic langauges like Maa.

Particles

“Particle” is a linguistic term that refers ambiguously to small functional morphemes such as prefixes/suffixes, articles, or other similar words. Maa nouns have particles that are somewhere between a prefix and an article, and Maa verbs have an infinitive particle that is somewhere between a prefix and a preposition. We'll just use the term “particle” to refer to these.

Maa has three noun classes: masculine, feminine, and place. Masculine nouns get the particle orl/l or o (plural il/i), Feminine nouns get the particle eng/enc, en, em, or ē̱/e (plural ing/in/im/i). Some feminine nouns can also have a collective sense, in which they have no plural and take the particle el. The “place” noun class described in modern grammars may overlap with this collective sense, but Erhardt does not discuss it, so we'll just refer to these as “collective nouns”.

Entries for nouns list the singular particle between the headword and definition. They usually do not list the part of speech (s. for noun/substantive), as this would be redundant since if it has one of these particles then it's a noun. They will usually list the plural form at the end, preceded by pl. Some nouns will list “(without article)” in place of the particle. Rarely, nouns will be presented just in the plural form, in which case the plural particle will be listed [for example: ma̍o, il (pl. form) twins].

Verbs will likewise often skip the part of speech if the particle is listed.