Comparative linguistics is a study which mainly focuses on comparing languages with a view of establishing their relatedness. It is involved in the comparison and classification of languages. As a practice, languages are compared and thereafter grouped according to three different principles: genetic, areal and typological. This study focused on genetic classification of the Kalenjin dialects. The language family is the basic component of genetic classification. A language family therefore, is the set of languages for which it can be proved that they developed from a single ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. Comparative study of the Kalenjin dialects has not been done and this is deduced from existing literature. This necessitated the study to be undertaken to determine the genetic relatedness of the Kalenjin dialects. The study aimed at justifying the mutual intelligibility among the Kalenjin dialects. The proposed study was guided by three objectives: establish whether the Kalenjin dialects are genetically related, reconstruct the pre-history of the Kalenjin dialects and determine the lexical variations of the Kalenjin dialects. The study was guided by the concept of the genetic tree diagram. The study intended to employ qualitative method in which ethnographic design was applicable. The researcher intends to collect open-ended, emerging data with the intent of developing themes from the same. The sample in this study was selected from native speakers of five Kalenjin dialects, who form the target population. The sample size comprised of 150 respondents with each of the Kalenjin dialects represented by 10 subjects. Purposive sampling technique was used in the selection of subjects from each dialect. The main instrument of data collection in this study was tape recording. The comparative method then be involved in data analysis. This study would contribute new knowledge in the fields of sociolinguistics and historical linguistics. The study established that the Kalenjin dialects are genealogically related. This is due to the resemblances of majority of the cognate terms across the dialects which include vocabulary areas involving kinship terms, domestic animals, food stuffs, human anatomy, days of the week, verbs and different times of the day. Based on the study objectives, it was recommended that Study of the individual Kalenjin dialects and a comparative study of other related Kenyan languages should be done. The study suggested that a further study should be done on reconstruction of proto Kalenjin language and a study of language use and gender in the Kalenjin dialects should be done.
1. Akivaga, S. K. And Odoga, S. (1999) literature: A School Certificate Course, East Africa Educational Publishers.
2. Antila, R. (1989) Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.
3. Bright, W.(1997) Social Factors in Language Change: The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
4. Bybee,J.L.(2010)Diachronic Linguistics. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics.
5. Bynon, T. (1977). Historical Linguistics, Cambridge University Press.
6. Campbell,L.(1988) Historical Linguistics :An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
7. Campbell, L. (2004) Historical Linguistics, M. I. T Press
8. Campbell, L. and Poser, J. P. (2008) Language Classification. Historical Method,
a. Cambridge University Press.
9. Chambers,J.K.(2003) Sociolinguistics Theory: Linguistic Variation and its Social Significance. Blackwell.
10. Chesaina,C.(1999) Oral Literature of the Kalenjin.East African Educational Publishers:Nairobi,Kenya.
11. Crowley,T.,andBowern,C.(2010).AnIntroductiontoHistoricalLinguistics.4thed.Oxford:Ox ford University Press.
12. Curtin, Petal (1988) African History, Longman London.
13. Ehret, C. and Posnansky, M., eds. The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. Berkeley: UCAL Press, 1982.
14. Fox,A.(1995)Linguistic Reconstruction. Oxford:Oxford University Press.
15. Greenberg,J. (1974) Language Typology: A Historical an Analytical Overview,Amazon.com.
16. Guthrie, Malcolm. (1948). The classification of the Bantu languages. London: Dawsons; Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.
17. Guthrie, Malcolm. (1962). “Bantu origins: A tentative new hypothesis.” Journal of African Languages 1:9–21.
18. Hale,M. (2007) Historical Linguistics:Theory and Method,Oxfor,Blackwell.
19. Henrich, h. 92009) Language History, Language Change and Language Relationship: An
a. Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Mounton De Grugter, New York.
20. Hock,H.H.(1991) Principles of Historical Linguistics .Mouton De Gruyter.
21. Hoenigswald, H.M. (1960) Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22. Joseph, D. and Janda, D (eds., The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Oxford, Blackwell.
23. Kamuren, F. (2011) the Kalenjin Language: A Comparative Study of the Morphosyntactic and Lexical Structure, Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi.
24. Lass,R.(1997) Historical Linguistics and Language Change.Cambridge University Press.
25. Lehmann,W.P.(1973) Historical Linguistics:An Introduction.Holt.
26. McDorman,R.E.(1999) Labial Instability in Sound Change. Organizational Knowledge Press.
27. Mcmahon,A. (1994) Understanding Language Change,Cambridge University Press.
28. Maxwell, Joseph. A. (2004) Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach Sage
a. Publishers, Inc.
29. Milroy,J.(1992) Linguistic Variation and Change.Blackwell.
30. Mugenda, O. M. and Mugend, A.B. (19990 Research Methods Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches Nairobi; Acts Press.
31. Ochieng, R. W. (1975) An Outline History of the Rift Valley of Kenya up to Ad 1990, East African Literature Bureau, Kampala.
32. Okoth, A. and Njoroge, R. N. (2006) History and Government, Jomo Kenyatta Foundation Nairobi, Kenya.
33. Patrick, P.L.(2008) The Speech Community,chapter 23in The Handbook of Language Variation and Change (eds J.K. Chambers, P Trudgill and N.Schilling-Estates), Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK.
34. Radford, A. (1999) Linguistics: An Introduction: Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
35. Ringe,D.,and Eska, J.F(2013) Historical Linguistics: Toward a twenty-first century reintergration. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
36. Samuels, M. L.(1972)Linguistic Evolution. Cambridge University Press.
37. Theodora, B (1977) Historical Linguistics, Cambridge University Press.
38. Trudgill P. (1986). Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Basil Blackwell; (Language and Society 10).
39. Yule
In-Text Citation: (Faith & Lwangale, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Faith, N. K., & Lwangale, D. (2018). A Comparative Study of the Kalenjin Dialects. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(8), 476–503.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
