Ogiek is a Southern Nilotic

Southern Nilotic languages

The Southern Nilotic languages are spoken mainly in western Kenya and northern Tanzania . They are generally divided into two groups, Kalenjin and Omotik–Datooga, although there is some uncertainty as to the internal coherence of the Kalenjin branch...

 language cluster of the Kalenjin

Kalenjin languages

The Kalenjin languages are a group of twelve related Southern Nilotic languages spoken in Kenya, eastern Uganda and northern Tanzania. The term Kalenjin comes from a Nandi expression meaning 'I say '...

 family spoken or once spoken by the Ogiek peoples, scattered groups of hunter-gatherers in Southern Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

 and Northern Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

. Most if not all Ogiek speakers have assimilated to cultures of surrounding peoples: the Akiek in northern Tanzania now speak Maasai

Maasai language

The Maasai language is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people, numbering about 800,000...

 and the Akiek of Kinare, Kenya now speak Gikuyu

Gikuyu language

Gikuyu or Kikuyu is a language of the Bantu family spoken primarily by the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Numbering about 6 million , they are the largest ethnic group in Kenya. Gikuyu is spoken in the area between Nyeri and Nairobi. Gikuyu is one of the five languages of the Thagichu subgroup of the...

. Ndorobo

Dorobo

Dorobo is a derogatory umbrella term for several unrelated hunter-gatherer groups of Kenya and Tanzania....

is a term considered derogatory, occasionally used to refer to various groups of hunter-gatherers in this area, including the Ogiek.

Dialects

There are three main Ogiek varieties that have been documented, though there are several dozen named local Ogiek groups:

• Kinare, spoken around the Kenyan place Kinare on the eastern slope of the Rift Valley
  Great Rift Valley
  The Great Rift Valley is a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trench, approximately in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in South East Africa...
  
  . The Kinare dialect is extinct, and Rottland (1982:24-25) reports that he found a few old men from Kinare in 1976, married with Kikuyu women and integrated in the Kikuyu culture, whose parents had lived in the forests around Kinare as honey-gathering Ogiek. They called themselves /akié:k pa kínáre/, i.e. Ogiek of Kinare.
• Sogoo (or Sokóò), spoken in the southern Mau Forest
  Mau Forest
  Mau Forest is a forest complex in the Rift Valley of Kenya. It is the largest indigenous montane forest in East Africa. The Mau Forest complex has an area of ....
  
   between the Amala and Ewas Ng'iro rivers (Heine 1973). The actual status of the Sogoo dialect is unclear. Bernd Heine
  Bernd Heine
  Bernd Heine is a German linguist and specialist in African studies.From 1978 to 2004 Heine held the chair for African Studies at the University of Cologne, Germany. His main focal points in research and teaching are African linguistics, language sociology, grammaticalization theory and language...
  
   included some Sogoo vocabulary in his 'Vokabulare ostafrikanischer Restsprachen' (1973). Franz Rottland, following Heine's directions, came across a Sogoo settlement of ten round huts in 1977, and reported that he was told that there were several other Sogoo settlements in the immediate surroundings (Rottland 1982:25). The Sogoo speakers had contact with the Kipsikii, another Kalenjin people, and were able to point out lexical differences between their own language and Kipsikii. Ten years later, Gabriele Sommer (1992:389) classified the Sogoo dialect as being threatened by extinction. The Sogoo variety was recorded in an area where Kipchornwonek Okiek reside (Sogoo is the name of a settlement/center there). Extensive texts from naturally occurring conversation recorded in both Kipchornwonek communities and Kaplelach Okiek communities are available in the publications of Dr. Corinne A. Kratz.
• Akiek (or Akie), spoken in Tanzania in the southern part of Arusha
  Arusha
  Arusha is a city in northern Tanzania. It is the capital of the Arusha Region, which claims a population of 1,288,088, including 281,608 for the Arusha District . Arusha is surrounded by some of Africa's most famous landscapes and national parks...
  
   region. Akiek is spoken by various little groups in the steppes south of Arusha, which is the territory of the Maasai. Akiek is probably dying out because many of its speakers have shifted to, or are shifting to, Maasai language
  Maasai language
  The Maasai language is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people, numbering about 800,000...
  
  . Maguire (1948:10) already reported a high level of bilinguality in Maasai, and remarked that "[t]he language of the Mósiro [an Akiek clan name] is dying, as any language except Masai tends to do in the Masai country." In the 1980s, however, Corinne Kratz and James Woodburn visited Akie groups in Tanzania during survey research and found that they were fully bilingual in Akie and Maasai.

External links

• http://www.ogiek.org The Ogiek People
• Okiek on the Ethnologue.
• Sketch of Okiek by Corinne A. Kratz.