Xwatsá and Basilisa speaking Iraqw

This video was recorded in Kwermusl, Tanzania by Amy Catling, where she met Basilisa and Xwatsá. Iraqw is spoken by 462,000 people in the Arusha and Manyara regions, and belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. As Iraqw has many neighboring ethnic communities, it has absorbed a significant number of Datooga loanwords. Its gender and numbering system is considerably diverse with over fourteen different plural suffixes, where the gender often differs between the singular and plural forms. The Iraqw peoples are thought to be descended from the Neolithic Afro-Asiatic peoples who brought domesticated plants and animals to the Great Lakes region.