The Luhya without the Uganda Bantu is an incomplete story.

-: I was forwarded the above by Dr. Sidika a few days ago. To add to the discourses we have always had here in search for our history. One Mr. David Wafula Lwangale was doing a field project in partial fulfilment of requirements of PhD titled *Genealogical Reconstruction of the proto-Luluhya language.* He must be graduated by now, the work is of November 2018. When you see him pass my greetings. 😇

Please go through too. I have and I give my comments thus;-

It is a good trial. It is informative. 

To understand Luhya, me thinks, we should not have agreed for a boundary at Mt. Elgon. The Kenya-Uganda boundary chokes the mind. It is some sort of indoctrination where you think one thing is away from another when they are but the same. We lose a lot in studying Luhya without any knowledge (or with little) of Uganda. As we rush to say Misri is our origin, we forget Uganda as our immediate origin point. It is in the oral tales, is it not?

A serious anthropigical study on dating and migration may fast track  us to our present history even before we dwelve into social aspects of finding our past like language and culture. Who was where by when? Can we separate language from its speakers? 

Mr. Lwangale draws phonological charts, trying to find the root word. It does not serve when you think Kenya is not the motherland of Bantu. Luhya is a coinage of political classification. Verbs and nouns, in my view, are shallow parts of speech to trust similarities and say, hey I have got it! You are not. 

I do not know how to say it but not everyone is artistic enough to bring out the soul of a language. Think of a language as an idea. A new one or a variation of another. We of course have been around for long and many languages born and burried as our ancestors that to think a language as a progressive item worth trying to put a pointer at some form would be to catch air. I mean, English is far from Kiswahili as Lunyore is from Tiriki. 😆. 

Then, the supersegmental parts of pronunciation and intonation that deceive us to rush to relate affects our understanding of the other language in favour of ours. Or in quick note that 'aaah, you are just our language (deformed - we do not speak badly)!'

We may not be seeing more languages born due to globalization and active preservation in speech and writing of the ones we have. That will help us to recognise authenticity of each. Tribulated will be those who will have done little to save theirs. So that when you are told Maragori is not Luhya you do not become stubborn trying to say look here, it got similar words with Bukusu and none from Nandi! 

- With Love

-: I have not read the thesis of Mr David Wafula Lwangale but I can understand the frustration people like him go through as the look for originality in a language, any language, but as Patrick looks at the writings critically, consider the following;

Nobody knows the original language, even the Bible does not tell us the language Adam spoke, it was not Hebrew; back home,  the most notorious criminals and outcasts among the Maragoli were exiled at Ivutwa, vutwa is a boundary, and the reason was that the exiles would land into the hands of hostile enemies and be killed, shading blood was considered taboo amongst the Maragoli; most of the time the exiles would survive, marry from the 'enemies' that's where languages would clash, hence the Tiriki, the Nyang'ori, etc the Nyang'ori combine kimaragoli, kijaluo and kinandi, man listen to that language when they talk, amazing combination!! Talk about sheng' in major towns, at least I was part of the evolution that birthed the original sheng' a combination of major tongues in Kenya, 'uganga na matus', meaning ugali na matumbo, by a Luo. Tribal wars would involve carrying away loot by the conquering tribe, livestock and women who would become wives in strange lands; children born out of such forced marriages would learn the language the mother spoke, a corruption of the father's tongue as spoken by the mother. Most Luhya dialects are a corruption of original tongues. The Maragoli language is one such original tongue. By the way did you know that people of Wanga(Mumias) and Samia in Busia were originally from Tiriki but influenced by the Luo?

-: Interesting. 

It was yesterday that one Tiriki man was asking me how he can search for his clan roots. 

The clan? Samia 

I was not sure of how I could help. I know Samia as an established group. A person searching again? From Tiriki? He hinted of Luo roots. 

- What could this Tiriki be?

-: @⁨Lung'afa⁩ 

I met a man from Aldai, a real Nyang'ori, the man once aspired to be MP for Aldai, his names were Pius Kipchirchir Kidombo; the man is highly educated, both him and his wife are University professors, the man could talk fluent kimaragoli, kijaluo and Kikalenji, and every time he switched language he would put on a face of the language he was speaking, when talking Kijaluo you wouldn't know he was a mkale few minutes ago; I met another such person in Eldoret, we persuaded him to speak the kinyang'ori tongue, man they make it easy for a Maragoli, a Mjaluo and a Mkalenjin to understand what they're saying but you can't speak back; he told us that it was a language of survival during tribal hostilities!!

-: Mmmm. Very interesting. And by the way, who are the so called Teriks?! I've met a few, who have Kalenjin names but only talk some very nice, fluent Kimaragoli. No kinandi. Could they just be Maragolis who are seeking a Kalenjin identity @⁨Baba Ndanyi⁩ ?

-: It is only in Tiriki where a person will tell you he comes from Vamavi clan. Here we know Mavi is a big house of many clans. 

- Could Tiriki be a cradle of sort as opposed to a present intonation that they are Luhya/Kalenjin offsprings?

-: On our side we have the Tiriki and on the Nandi side we have the Terik, the difference is origin, but the two groups have identical background; in case of hostilities, the two would be the buffer zones on both sides and actually would defuse the hostilities

-: Tiriki and Terik is one and the same word.when the Luhyas moved to the present Tiriki,they found the Teriks living there. Because of the tribal wars the teriks moved to different areas in the eastern region. Some went Tambua,Banja Kapsengere etc

So, Luhyas occupied their land so with Luhyas loose dialect, they pronounced the word "Terik" Tiriki. Just the way they pronounce the name Kipruto as Givurudo and jepkoyayi as ijevukoyai