Turkana

A Nilo-Saharan language and a member of the East Nilotic family, spoken by c. 1.5 million people in mainly in Uganda (c. 1.1 million), the Turkana district in Kenya (nearly 400,000) and the Sudan; also known as Teso-Turkana.

The closest linguistic affiliations of Turkana are with the neighbouring languages Karimojong, Jie, Toposa and Nyangatom. There is a variety of dialects spread over, but it seems that the central dialect covers most of the area occupied by the tribe. The most deviant dialect is probably spoken in the southwest part of the Turkana area. The language is spelt in the Roman alphabet.

Turkana is a terraced-level tone language. The two main tones are high and low. Tone is important at the grammatical level.

There are three main tones in Twi - high, middle and low. The tones are phonemic.


CLASSIFICATION = Nilo-Saharan family, SCRIPT = Roman

Grammar
The Turkana Language TURKANA GRAM 1