Sonjo language

Infobox Language
name=Sonjo
nativename=ke-temi
states=Tanzania
region=Arusha Region, Ngorongoro District, near the Kenyan border
speakers=30,000 (2002 SIL)
familycolor=Niger-Congo
fam2=Atlantic-Congo
fam3=Volta-Congo
fam4=Benue-Congo
fam5=Bantoid
fam6=Southern Bantoid
fam7=Narrow Bantu
fam8=Central
fam9=E
iso2=bnt|iso3=soz

Sonjo is a Bantu language spoken in northern Tanzania, 30-40 miles west of Lake Natron. Ethnolinguistically, it is a displaced member of Guthrie’s E50 group, most other members of which are found in Central Kenya. Within that group, it is most closely related to Gikuyu. The Sonjo people number about 30,000 (2002 SIL); many of them are bilingual in Swahili, the local language of education. Sonjo is largely undescribed.

The Sonjo have lived for centuries as an isolated enclave in Maasai territory. They are known for their use of irrigation systems in agriculture, a rare trait which causes some historians to link them to the hitherto unexplained ruined irrigation systems of Engaruka, 60 miles to the southeast. The term "Sonjo" is the name given to the people by the Maasai; they call themselves "ba-temi" and their language "ke-temi" or "gi-temi". Apart from inevitable Maasai (Eastern Nilotic) influence, Sonjo shows influence from Chaga (Bantu E40), various Southern Cushitic languages, and from Southern Nilotic. The Southern Cushitic influence has been attributed to an ancestral Ma'a or Dahalo community, while the Southern Nilotic traits most probably come from Datooga.

References

* Nurse, Derek & Franz Rottland. 1991. ‘Sonjo: Description, Classification, History’, in "Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika", 12/13, 171-289.