SABAOT SENTENSE CONSTRUCTION (word order)

My people,

Today I share with you something unique about the arrangement of words in a Sabaot sentence.

Did you know that unlike Swahili and English, the Sabaot sentence begins with a verb?

For those of us who know Sabaot try to write down the following Kiswahili sentences in Sabaot (I am assuming you know Kiswahili.

1.      Baba amekuja                                                 Ka(ku)cho baaba.

2.      Mtoto amekufa                                              Ka(ku)me leekweet.

3.      Shangazi alienda                                             Kiwo senge.

For those of us who know something about kinds of words in a language or what is sometimes referred to as Parts of speech you will realize that:

While the Swahili sentence begins with nouns, the Sabaot sentences on the other hand begin with Verbs (doing words/ Action words). This is true for other Kalenjin languages.

Something more interesting is what I am going to discuss further:

In a sentence, we usually have an action (verb) and the thing or person doing that action. It is also possible to have a thing or person to whom the action is done or directed at.

The thing or person doing or performing an action is called The Subject

While the person or thing to whom a particular action is being done or directed at is called The Object

Kabir baaba leekweet

Kimwoochi Yeesu ruubiikyi

In the above sentences, both the Subject and Object are very ambiguous.   In the first sentence it could either be the Father or the Child who is beating the other, while in the second it could either be Jesus or his disciples telling the other and vice versa.

In the Sabaot writing system, to solve this problem we have come up with the following mark : which comes before a word that is supposed to be the subject in a sentence.  For the above sentences if we mark them as follows:

Kabir :baaba leekweet

Kimwoochi :Yeesu ruubiikyi

Here it would mean in the first sentence it is the Father doing the beating and in the second it is Jesus telling the disciples.

For those who are proficient in spoken Sabaot, they should have no problem in making the correct intonation to communicate the same! For the rest of us you need to do a lot of practice.

This is the same reason that makes it very difficult for other communities to be proficient in our language. 

NB/ This ambiguity can never be solved by changing the word order.

In Kiswahili you would say:

Baaba amemchapa mototo

Yeesu aliwaambia wafuasi wake.

Here the subject comes first then the verb and finally the object