| Oropom | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Kenya,Uganda |
| Ethnicity | Oropom people |
| Extinct | c. 1950 |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | (insufficiently attested or not a distinct language)orop1234 |
Oropom (Oworopom, Oyoropom, Oropoi) is anAfrican language, possiblyspurious and, if real, almost certainlyextinct. The language was purportedly once spoken by theOropom people in northeasternUganda and northwesternKenya between theTurkwel River, theChemorongit Mountains, andMount Elgon.
There is only one article containing any original research on the language, Wilson (1970), which only a handful of other articles discuss. John G. Wilson's article furnishes only a short word list, and was written at a time when the language, if it existed, was nearly extinct. The article was based mainly on the limited memories of two very old women, one "a child of one of the residual Oropom families that had remained after the break-up of the Oropom here (Matheniko county)" who "remembered a few words of the language", the other an old lady called Akol "descended from the prisoners taken by theKarimojong on theTurkwel" who was "able to furnish many Oropom words". Under the circumstances, only the barest details of Oropom could be ascertained.
On this basis, Wilson concluded that it must have had at least two dialects: one spoken around theTurkwel area, containing a significant number ofLuo words, and someBantu words, and one spoken aroundMatheniko county with fewer Luo words. Both containKalenjinloanwords.[citation needed]
Wilson ascribed it to theKhoisan group, seemingly based solely on its physical appearance; but this identification is unreliable;Harold C. Fleming describes it as a "ridiculous suggestion". Elderkin (1983) says that "The Oropom data of Wilson (1970) shows some resemblances toKuliak, some of which could well be mediated throughNilotic, with which it seems to have more resemblances (F. Rottland, personal communication)... There are many fewer resemblances worth noting withHadza and only a minimal number withSandawe." He quotes eight potentially similar words between Oropom and Hadza, and four between Oropom and Sandawe. Harold Fleming also notes that "initial inspection suggests some possible commonality" between Oropom and theKuliak languages, a probablyNilo-Saharan relic group found in Northern Uganda among such tribes as theIk. However, in the absence of further work, Oropom remains anunclassified language.[citation needed]
Bernd Heine, who surveyed the area less than ten years after Wilson and found no trace of the language, expressed skepticism that it existed at all.[1] BothLionel Bender andRoger Blench have opined that the language was made up as a joke.[1] Souag (2004) lists several motives Wilson's informants might have had to fabricate the language, and observes that even in his article, Wilson notes that he had to deal with "charlatans" once word got out that he was looking for anyone with knowledge of the language.[1]
This wordlist, taken from the appendix to Wilson (1970), is based on Akol's memories (and thus is considered by Wilson as belonging to the "Turkwell dialect"). He says that he collected words from the other dialect as well, but apparently never published them. The list consists of less than a hundred words, which are likely to be all the vocabulary that will ever be known of the language.
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