Core/Cultural Borrowing in Sabaot from Kiswahili: An analysis of Sabaot/Kiswahili Bilinguals in Mount Elgon Region, Kenya

Abstract

This study is an analysis of lexical borrowing of nominals in Sabaot from Kiswahili. The two languages under study differ from each other in significant ways. Kiswahili, for example, is a language of the Niger-Congo family classified by Ethnologue as ISO 639-3: SWA, while on the other hand, Sabaot belongs to the Southern Nilotic group that occupies the Mount Elgon area. This research was guided by the specific objective; to investigate the spoken language of young, middle-aged, and older Sabaot/Kiswahili bilingual speakers. This research was guided by two theories, namely Borrowing Transfer Theory by Terence Odlin (1989) and Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory (EVT) by Giles and Taylor (1977). As a way of data collection, a wordlist and questionnaires were issued to 30 Sabaot/Kiswahili bilinguals of Chepyuk ward in Bungoma County, Kenya. The results of the wordlist analysis indicated that there were extensive core borrowings of Kiswahili nouns into the Sabaot language. The findings further showed that the core borrowing of nouns was more among the younger and middle-aged than among the older Sabaot/Kiswahili bilinguals.