Pokot Language (Pökoot)

The speakers' self-designation for their language is ngala Pökot; Pökoot is the name Unicode's CLDR, the data behind phones and computers, uses for it. The two dots on ö tell the reader that this vowel is not the plain o of English or Swahili spelling. Pokot and Pokoot, without the two dots, are also written, and Pokot is the usual form in English.

CLDR has no letter list for Pökoot. The symbol grid above therefore gives the letters of the closely related Kalenjin alphabet as CLDR records it, a b c d e g h i j k l m n o p r s t u w y, with Ö ö placed after O. Like Kalenjin, Pokot needs no f, q, v, x or z for its own words. The grid also holds the curly and straight apostrophes, the quotation marks of Kenyan print, the combining diaeresis for building ö by hand, the flags 🇰🇪 and 🇺🇬, and a few emoji Pokot speakers use about home.

How to type ö and Ö

On Windows, hold Alt and type 0246 on the number pad for ö and 0214 for Ö; with the US-International layout, type " and then o. On a Mac, press Option+U, let go, then press o (add Shift for Ö). On Android and iPhone keyboards, hold the o key and pick ö from the row that pops up. In HTML the entities are ö and Ö.

If none of that is at hand, copy ö from this page, or type o followed by the combining diaeresis (U+0308), which most fonts draw as the same ö. The single ready-made character (U+00F6) is the better choice, because search boxes and spell checkers treat it as one letter.

Kalenjin spelling in Kenya writes the ng sound of English sing as ng’ with an apostrophe, as Swahili does in ng’ombe. For the curly ’ hold Alt and type 0146 on Windows or press Option+Shift+] on a Mac; the straight ' that every keyboard has is the common everyday form. Quotation marks follow English, “double” outside and ‘single’ inside.

Where the Pokot language is spoken

Pokot is spoken in north-western Kenya, in West Pokot County around Kapenguria, Chepareria, Sigor and Kacheliba, and in the Tiaty area of Baringo County, often called East Pokot, around Chemolingot and Nginyang. Pokot communities also live across the border in Uganda, around Amudat in Karamoja. CLDR estimates roughly 400,000 speakers and lists them in Kenya only; like every CLDR figure it is an estimate.

Pökoot is a Southern Nilotic language of the Kalenjin group, related to Nandi, Kipsigis, Marakwet and Tugen but distinct enough to be counted as a language of its own. The Pokot have long been described as two peoples in one: hill Pokot farming the green slopes of the Cherangani and Sekerr hills, and plains Pokot herding cattle and goats in the dry lowlands. Kalenjin has its own collection, as do the Nilotic neighbours Masai and Luo, Swahili, and the Kenya and Uganda pages for their flags and emoji.

Pokot words and the emoji people use

A few Pokot words come up again and again in writing about the Pokot: Tororot, the name for God; kokwö, the council where elders meet to talk a matter through, with the same ö as Pökoot; and sapana, the coming-of-age ceremony for young men. Pokot songs and gospel songs, the Pokot Bible and its app, Pokot names, and a Pokot dictionary or translator are typical things people look for, so Pokot text online often turns up as song titles, scripture, names and greetings in plain letters.

The emoji in this collection are the ones that fit Pokot life: 🐄 🐐 and 🥛 for the herds and the milk that are wealth and food on the plains, 📿 for the many-layered bead necklaces Pokot women wear, ⛰️ for the hills of West Pokot, and 🎶 for the songs that carry the language online.