John speaking Maasai

Maasai, or Maa, is an East African language. It is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Closely related to Samburu, Chamus, and Parakuyu. This video of John Lamayan speaking Maasai was recorded by Avi Kumar in Kenya. Maasai, also known as Maa, is a language spoken by the Maasai people who live in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania. As of 2016, there were 1.5 million native speakers of this language. Maasai is an Eastern Nilotic language in the broader Nilo-Saharan language family. Influxes of political power for the lingua francas of the region, English and Swahili, have affected the daily utility of the Maasai language, which is the primary mode of communication within the semi-nomadic community of the Maasai who live around the African Great Lakes. Because most Maasai people have been resistant to learning and using both English and Swahili, taking very few loanwords from either language and interacting in a limited capacity with governmental institutions, they have suffered linguistic and cultural discrimination in both Kenya and Tanzania. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.