Talk:Ogiek language

Okiek > Ogiek ?
Suggestion:

change spelling "Okiek" throughout to "Ogiek".

Reason: the author here follows an older ethnographic tradition (vide Roderic Blackburn 1982), still retained e.g. by Corinne Kratz, one of the few Western scholars treating this people and their language since the late 1970s. However, the spelling question has been resolved by the Ogiek themselves, who now uniformly write "Ogiek" (sg. Ogiot) in all self-references (including their two organization websites, and their journal). This has become common standard.

Also, the spoken pronounciation of the two consonants "g" and "k" in the word is clearly different, when emitted by a native speaker; at least this is true for the Mau Ogiek, whom I have been familiar with.

Alexander Eichener


 * A fair point. I'm in two minds. Wikipedia's naming conventions prescribe use of the most common term, which is not necessarily the most correct term. I don't know where said older ethnographic tradition originated (though it was before Blackburn's Okiek history, cf. Heine 1972), but it has been used widely &mdash; which would make 'Okiek' the preferred term to use while at the same time pointing out the correct spelling. On the other hand, I would want Wikipedia to reflect the most current state of knowledge. Do you have a reference to the Ogiek practice?
 * I'm taking the safe side here for now by adding the updated spelling. Hope to hear back from you! &mdash; mark &#9998; 17:48, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Dear Mark: you asked for references, reasonably enough. The easiest reference would be to point you to the two own Ogiek organization websites, namely http://www.ogiek.org and http://www.orip.or.ke.

As to printed sources, I should like to refer to the Ogiek quarterly journal "Oasis" (in English), and to Joseph Towett's recent book on Ogiek land cases (published 2004 via the Ogiek Welfare Council). These sources express both the use of the community itself and of the Kenyan (Kiswahili- and English-speaking) public, which I believe should be standard for Wikipedia as well. All three Kenyan newspapers use the spelling "Ogiek" (though they hardly know the singular "Ogiot", as I note with some amusement).

Best regards, and excuse my delay, Alexander Eichener 19th November 2005


 * Don't worry about the delay, thanks for checking back. As you note, 'Ogiek' seems to be coming into wider use; I have added that to the article, I have changed the native name in the language table to the right. I'm still a bit in doubt (in the database of the Leiden African Studies Center, for example, there aren't any instances of 'Ogiek' yet, and I consider that quite a good measure for use in ethnographic and linguistic circles), but the high internet presence of Ogiek vs. Okiek indicates that Ogiek is really catching on, so I'll move the article.
 * On a sidenote: ever thought about contributing yourself? We don't have an article on the Ogiek themselves yet, for example... &mdash; mark &#9998; 20:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

68.166.19.242 16:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC) Corinne Kratz 26 May 2007 Perhaps I can explain the difference between the two spellings, Okiek and Ogiek. The sound of the voiced velar stop consonant falls somewhere between [g] and [k] as spoken, so people could easily write it differently. In my publications, the spelling I use for the word Okiek and in transcriptions is phonemic. This is why my spelling differs from the Ogiek spelling adopted by local NGOs formed in the late 1990s (websites noted above), which reflects phonetic variations in the language. My use of the spelling "Okiek" is analytically motivated, not a matter of "an older ethnographic tradition" as the comment above suggests. To explain this distinction further: the inventory of consonant phonemes in Kalenjin languages like Okiek includes a series of unvoiced stop (or plosive) consonants. Most of these unvoiced stop phonemes (/p/, /t/, /c/, /k/) become voiced in intervocalic word environments, (i.e. when they occur between vowels). Toweett (1979:42) provides a more precise description of the sound of an intervocalic /k/ and comments on spelling conventions: “An intervocalic /k/ is articulated as if it were a velar fricative /ɤ/ which is a sound between an aspirated [gh] and [kh]. There is a faint gemination in the articulation of an intervocalic /k/. [Toweett’s footnote: In traditional conventional spelling intervocalic /k/ is replaced by /g/. In this study /k/ is preferred because it is morphemic.]” Describing the same phenomenon in Nandi, another Kalenjin language, Chet and Jane Tabsubei Creider say, “The phonetic realization of the stop phonemes is quite complex. /p/ and /k/ are voiced and optionally spirantized intervocalically. Thus /neeka/ ‘goats’ [is articulated] with [g] or [ɤ] [as the phonetic sound realizing the phoneme /k/].” (1989:13). In Kenyan press coverage in the last decade or so, the Ogiek spelling has indeed begun to be more conventional – in part because of the NGO’s spelling usage in their names. Wikipedia will have to decide whether to emphasize an emerging social norm, with the Ogiek spelling, or scholarly practice and linguistic accuracy, with the Okiek spelling, or whether it should simply note that both are in use, and the linguistic reasons for why they are both used. Here are the citations for the two sources noted, both written by linguists and Kalenjin speakers: Creider, Chet and Jane Tapsubei Creider 1989	A Grammar of Nandi. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. Toweett, Taaitta 1979	A Study of Kalenjin Linguistics. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau.

Article removed from Good articles
This article was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because it seems very short. With 5 references listed I wonder if there's not enough information to expand it by a few paragraphs? What's there is great though. Worldtraveller 23:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Ogiek does not have clicks
This isn't worth mentioning in the article, but thought I should post a warning here. Ilaria Micheli (2018) Grammatical Sketch and Short Vocabulary of the Ogiek Language of Mariashoni (EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste), p. 2, incorrectly says there is a click consonant in a word $⟨*lan⟩$ 'horn' attested by Distefano, but Distefano never says such a thing. He compares *lan 'horn' to "Khoisan" tlana 'horn'. This is actually Sandawe tláná 'horn', and even that doesn't have a click. Though it would be interesting if the words were related. — kwami (talk) 23:56, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Removed references to "Akiek" as a subgroup
Akiek people do not exist as a group or subgroup of Ogiek or Akie people. See this talk page discussion. ~Cherri of Arctic Circle System (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2023 (UTC)