1. Family: Nilo-Saharan
  2. Subfamily: Eastern Sudanic
  3. Genus: Nilotic

Maasai

WALS coordinates: 3° S, 36° E

spoken in Kenya, Tanzania

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Maasai
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Masai,
    • Maa
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants Implosives only
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Tonal/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 categories per word
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly prefixing
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
    Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Position of Case Affixes Case tone
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification Two classes
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb VSO
    Order of Subject and Verb VS
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
    Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession 'Have'
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Locational
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    Lexicon
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns