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Suba
Suba
Abasuba
Native to	Kenya
Region	Africa
Native speakers	100,000 (2010)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Suba;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sxb

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The Suba people originated in the country of Uganda that is across Lake Victoria from Kenya. The small tribe of Suba people are estimated to be around a population size of about 100,000. Since 2010 the language has been put to the status of "at risk" because of the lack of follow-up with the elders of the tribe. The people settled on the islands of Rusinga and Mfangano in attempt to escape the expansion of the Buganda Kingdom that was occurring in Uganda.

General information

The Suba people who settled on the islands include smaller clans called the 'Chula', meaning the people of the islands, while others were called the Fangano. Other clans began forming when the people did much more expansion onto the islands. For example, there are three other clans whose clan names were distinguished by their new geographic location. The clan that predominantly lives the closest to Lake Victoria and is the bigger of the sub groups is the people that go by the name Gwasii and they happen to reside upon the Gwasii Hills. Another group that resides on a hill are the Uregi who reside on the Uregi Hills of Meari which is a town in the Nyanza province of Kenya. Further information upon the tribesmen's expansion remains pretty unclear considering that the Niger-Congo family has the largest number of dialects within Africa. Distinguishing the different dialects become rather difficult because they all predominantly use the noun class system. With that being said it has become rather unclear as to how deep into Kenya the Suba people managed to travel being as distinguishing them from other dialects becomes harder and harder as the language is slowly being influenced by its neighboring language, Luo.

Language Barrier

One of the biggest issues relating to the Suba language declination is the sole fact that Kenya viewed the language as inferior. The education system is teaching English and Luo to the newer generations of Suba children thus impairing the possibilities of the language to come back.^[2] Some even say that the fluent language speakers are middle-aged and have yet to establish a system to rebuild the language so that it may take proper footing as one of Africa's many languages, thus it has established a language status of at risk. Many blame the elders as they do not take proper measures to ensure the language's existence by teaching their young ones from an early onset. The biggest concern deriving from the pressures of reviving the language is the fear that their children will begin to build an identity crisis while attending school, considering that it is taught in either English or Luo.^[3]

References

^ Suba at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
^ Otieno, Jeff, "Extinction of languages in East Africa worries Unesco", The East African, Nov. 2010
^ Muindi, Matthias, "Languages: living on borrowed time", News from Africa, Apr. 2002

External links

Did you know Suba is at risk? (n.d.). http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/4789

Category:Niger–Congo languages Category:Languages of Niger-Congo Category:Endangered Niger-Congo languages

[e17-1] Suba at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)

[2] Otieno, Jeff, "Extinction of languages in East Africa worries Unesco", The East African, Nov. 2010

[3] Muindi, Matthias, "Languages: living on borrowed time", News from Africa, Apr. 2002

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User:Fiscal002/sandbox

General information

Language Barrier

See also

References

Further reading

External links