Maasai (Maa) Alphabet

Unicode's CLDR, the data that teaches phones and computers each language, lists the Maa alphabet as a b c d e ɛ g h i ɨ j k l m n ŋ o ɔ p r s t u ʉ w y. That is 26 letters, with no f, q, v, x or z; five of them sit right after their nearest plain partner: ɛ after e, ɨ after i, ŋ after n, ɔ after o and ʉ after u. Each has a capital: Ɛ, Ɨ, Ŋ, Ɔ, Ʉ. C turns up inside ch, as in the CLDR names lchina (Chinese) and lchumari (Somali), and sh is written as two letters, as in Kúshîn, the ninth month.

Maa has nine vowels where English spelling has five, which is why the extra letters are vowels. They come in pairs: e and ɛ (the open e of bed), o and ɔ (the open o of law), i and ɨ, u and ʉ, where the barred letters stand for looser, more open versions of i and u. Linguists call this tongue-root vowel harmony: the vowels of a word tend to come from one set, so a single letter can change a word's meaning. ŋ is the ng of singer as one sound, as in Ɔɛnɨ́ɔɨŋɔk, CLDR's Maa name for March.

Tone marks in Maa: á, â and ɛ́

Maa is a tonal language: the pitch of a syllable is part of the word. Dictionaries and CLDR mark it on the vowel, the acute for a high tone (Jumapílí, Sunday) and the circumflex for a falling one (Kúshîn, Ɛndámâ for p.m.). CLDR's list also includes grave and macron forms, and its month name Oloilépūnyīē uses the macron. That is why the grid has á à â ā, é è ê ē, í ì î ī, ó ò ô ō and ú ù û ū in both cases.

The open vowels take the same marks, but Unicode has no ready-made ɛ́, ɔ́, ɨ́ or ʉ́. They are written as the letter followed by a combining mark: ɛ + U+0301 gives ɛ́ in Yɛ́sʉ (Jesus), ʉ + U+0301 gives ʉ́ in Oladalʉ́ (January). The four combining marks are in the grid, ready to paste right after a letter. Everyday writing often leaves tone unmarked and may use plain e, o, i, u and ng, so you will often see Enkai for God and Sopa for hello.

How to type ɛ, ɔ, ɨ, ʉ and ŋ

The quickest way is to copy them from this page. In Microsoft Word on Windows, type the code and press Alt+X: 025B for ɛ, 0254 for ɔ, 0268 for ɨ, 0289 for ʉ and 014B for ŋ; the capitals are 0190 Ɛ, 0186 Ɔ, 0197 Ɨ, 0244 Ʉ and 014A Ŋ. For a tone mark, type the letter, then 0301 (acute), 0300 (grave), 0302 (circumflex) or 0304 (macron) and Alt+X again. On a Mac, add the Unicode Hex Input source in Keyboard settings, then hold Option and type the same four-digit codes.

On a phone, long-press a vowel on most keyboards to get á à â ā, é è ê ē and the rest; the extra letters need a keyboard with African or IPA letters, or a paste. On web pages, ŋ gives ŋ and Ŋ Ŋ, and the others work as numeric entities such as ɛ for ɛ and ʉ for ʉ. CLDR's Maa locale takes its quotation marks from the default set, the same as English: “ ” with ‘ ’ inside.

Maasai words and greetings

The best-known Maasai greetings are short. Sopa (also written Supa or Supai) is hello, answered with Ipa (also written Epa); Takwenya is a formal greeting to a woman, answered with Iko; and Ashe oleng means thank you very much. Enkai (also Engai) is God, and Ol Doinyo Lengai, the volcano 🌋 in northern Tanzania, is the Mountain of God. Maasai men's names often include Ole, son of, as in Ole Sankale.

Unicode's Maa locale shows the written language in full. Days are close to Swahili but carry Maa tone: Jumapílí, Jumatátu, Jumane, Jumatánɔ, Alaámisi, Jumáa, Jumamósi. The months have Maa names of their own, from Oladalʉ́ in January to Ntʉ́ŋʉ́s in December. Language names are built with nkʉtʉ́k ɔ́ɔ̄, so English is nkʉtʉ́k ɔ́ɔ̄ nkɨ́resa; the years are counted Meínō Yɛ́sʉ and Eínō Yɛ́sʉ, before and after Jesus; and the Kenyan shilling is Iropiyianí e Kenya, written Ksh1,000.00.

Where the Maasai language is spoken

Maa is the language of the Maasai of the Rift Valley grasslands on both sides of the Kenya–Tanzania border, from Narok and Kajiado in Kenya to Arusha, Ngorongoro and Simanjiro in Tanzania. CLDR estimates about 1.9 million speakers, roughly 1 million in Tanzania 🇹🇿 and 900,000 in Kenya 🇰🇪. Most Maasai also speak Swahili, and many English. The names of the Maasai Mara and, by most accounts, the Serengeti come from Maa words.

Maa is an Eastern Nilotic language. Samburu, spoken further north in Kenya, is so close that it is often called a dialect of Maa, and Teso and Turkana are more distant relatives; Kalenjin and Luo are Nilotic too, from other branches. Samburu, Teso, Kalenjin, Luo, Kikuyu and Swahili each have their own collection, as do Kenya and Tanzania for the flags, the shillings and the countries' emoji.