A LANGUAGE WHERE DIFFERENT VOWELS DO NOT FOLLOW EACH OTHER IN A WORD!

Today I feel inspired to share with you all a very unique aspect of our Sabaot language that affects both the spoken and the written language. Once you internalize this aspect, you will make great strides in as far as how our language is written and it may also help you to some extent in the spoken language.

Did you know that at no time do different vowels follow each other in a Sabaot word!

For purposes of this discourse I will limit myself to the five vowels that we are all familiar with and these are: 

a             e             I              o             u

In most cases you will find that when you are to have different vowels to follow each other then, the vowels will melt into either :

y ness or w ness (yness or wness) for instance:

Chai in Kiswahili will translate to Chaayiik (chaayiit) 

To begin will never be toou but will always be toowu

Saait for watch or time will be saayit

This also applies when you have words that have been formed by different affixes

We have four tenses in the Sabaot language

Present                                               a                           e.g. aweeti Now  (verb  to go)

Recent past (past perfect)                 Ka                         e.g. Kaweeti (earlier today)

Middle past                                      Ko (Ku)                 e.g. Koweeti (Kuweeti) (Yesterday)

Distant past                                      Ki                           e.g Kiweeti   (The day before yesterday and  

                                                                                                all   other days before that)

 

If you want to say:

I went (distant past)

 you will say Kyaweeti   (This should have actually been Kiaweeti) Ki -being the distant past marker while a stands for the first person (anii) and weeti being the verb but i and a will melt to ya

You have gone (recent past)

You will say Keewe which will be Ka (recent past marker) + i (second person marker for inyiing) + we  here a and i will melt and bring ee

NB/ for the other Kalenjins you will hear them say, Kaiwe for you have gone, Koinyoo(n) you came e.t.c

All for today:

Remember that unlike vowels (different vowels) do not follow each other in a word in Sabaot.  This is for the same reason that we call ourselves Sabawoot and not Sabaot ! Next I will discuss a few exceptions to this rule and how we provide for it in writing.