Maa Language

Maa and Samburu Language Research

Bennett, Patrick R. “Tone and the Nilotic Case System.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 37/1 (1974): 19–28.

Burton, Michael L. and Lorraine Kirk. “Ethnoclassification of Body Parts: A Three-Culture Study.” Anthropological Linguistics 21/8 (1979): 379–399.

Frankl, P. J. L. “The Word for ‘God’ in Swahili: Further Considerations.” Journal of Religion in Africa 25/2 (1995): 202–211.

Greenberg, Joseph H. “The Origin of the Masai Passive.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 29/2 (1959): 171–176.

Griscom, Richard and Doris L. Payne. “Non-uniform Syllable Weight in Southern Kenyan Maa.” Paper provided by authors, no date.
Also published as Chapter 9 in Syllable Weight in African Languages, edited by Paul Newman. Current Issues in Linguist Theory 338. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2017.

Guion, Susan G., Mark W. Post, and Doris L. Payne. “Phonetic correlates of tongue root vowel contrasts in Maa.” Journal of Phonetics 32 (2004): 517-542.

Hoffman, Barbara G. “Transgendered translation of Mande and Maa languages.” In International Perspectives on Language and Gender, edited by José Santaemilia, Patricia Bou, Sergio Maruenda, and Gora Zaragoza, 306–317. València: Universitat de València, 2007.

Hohenberger, J. “Comparative Masai Word List: Nilotic. Nilo. Hamitic. Masai. Hamitic. Semitic.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 26/3 (1956): 281–287.

Huntingford, G. W. B. “The ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ Languages.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 12/2 (1956): 200–222.

Huntingford, G. W. B. “Some Names of Trees and Plants in Masai, Nandi, and Dorobo (East Africa).” Anthropos 71/3–4 (1976): 223–440.

Karani, Michael. “Syntactic Categories and the Verb-Argument Complex in Parakuyo Maasai.” PhD dissertation.  Stellenbosch University, 2018.

Kirk, Lorrain and Michael Burton. “Meaning and Context: A Study of Contextual Sifts in Meaning of Maasai Personality Descriptors.” American Ethnologist 4/4 (1977): 734–761.

Koopman, Hilda.  “Inside the ‘Noun’ in Maasai.”  Workshop paper, unpublished.  2001.

Koopman, Hilda. “The Locality of Agreement and the Structure of the DP in Maasai.”  Keynote Address, unpublished.  2001 Texas Linguistic Society Conference on the Role of agreement in Natural Language.  Version of 30 December 2001.

Koopman, Hilda. “On the Homophony of Past Tense and Imperatives in Kisongo Maasai.” Papers in African Linguistics. UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 6 (May 2001).

Ole-Kotikash, Leonard. “The derivational morphology of the Maa noun.” Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology, 2000. (Final project).

Lamoureaux, Siri van Dorn. “Applicative Constructions in Maasai.” MA Thesis. Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon, 2004.

Meitamei, Alexander, Furaha Chai, and James Ogola Onyango. “Phonological Processes in Nouns across Maasai Dialects.” International Journal of Science and Research 3/9 (2014): 2017–2025.

Mol, Frans. Lessons in Maa: A Grammar of Maasai Language. Lemek, Kenya: Maasai Centre, 1995.

Mol, Frans. Maa: A Dictionary of the Maasai Language and Folklore: English-Maasai. Nairobi: Marketing & Publishing Ltd., 1978.

Mol, Frans. Maasai Language and Culture. Lemek, Kenya: Maasai Centre Lemek, 1996.

ole Munke, David.  The Maasai Language:  An Introduction.  2nd edition.  Eldoret, Kenya:  Utafiti Foundation, 2018.

Payne, Doris L. “Argument structure and locus of affect in Maasai External Possession construction.” Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Syntax and Semantics in Africa. Berkeley Linguistics Society 23 (1997):  98–115.

Payne, Doris L.  “The Diversity of Maa (Nilotic) Adverbs:  Speed, Time, Modality, Intensity and Nominal-Tense/Aspect.”  Studies in African Linguistics 49/2 (2020):  160–186.

Payne, Doris L. “Functions of Maa peê + low tone: a case study of discourse-driven polysemy.” Journal of Language Sciences 11 (2004):  97–139.

Payne, Doris L. “How to develop a new intransitive: the story of Maa ‘sip’ ‘make smooth, lick clean, bless, kill, tell the truth’, and ‘be certain’.” In The First Seoul International Conference on Discourse and Cognitive Linguistics: Perspectives on the 21st Century, Seoul, Korea, June 9-10, 2001, 339–362. Seoul: Korean Society of Discourse and Cognition, 2001.

Payne, Doris L. “Maa Color Terms and Their Use as Human Descriptors.” Anthropological Linguistics 45/2 (2003): 169–200.

Payne, Doris L. “The Maasai External Possessor Construction.” In Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicated to T. Givón, edited by Joan L. Bybee, John Haiman, and Sandra A. Thompson, 395–422. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1997.

Payne, Doris L. “Maasai gender in typological perspective.” Studies in African Linguistics 27/2 (1998): 159–175.

Payne, Doris L. “Verb initial languages and information order.” In Word Order in Discourse, edited by Pamela A. Downing and Michael Noonan, 449–485. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995.

Payne, Doris L., Leonard ole Kotikash, and A. Keswe Mapena ole Lekutit. “A Frame Semantics approach to lexemic structure: Uncovering the truth about Maa a-síp.” Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 22 (2001): 145–168.

Payne, Doris L., Leonard ole Kotikash, and Keswe ole Mapena, with Loatha Lesilale, Lazaro Matayo ole Melubo, Stephen ole Muntet, and Peter Ndetio.  Maa (Maasai) Swahili-English Dictionary.  486 pages.  Unpublished pre-print, 2021.

Payne, Doris L. and Derek Olsen. “Maa (Maasai) Nominalization: Animacy, Agentivity and Instrument.” Paper #2143 in Selected proceedings of the 38th annual conference on African linguistics: linguistic theory and African language documentation, edited by Masangu Matondo, Fiona McLaughlin, and Eric Potsdam, 151–165. Somerville, Massachusetts: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2009.

Quinn-Wriedt, Lindsey Taylor. “Vowel Harmony in Maasai.” PhD dissertation.  University of Iowa, 2013.

Rasmussen, Kent [A.]. “A tonal split in bound argument pronouns in Il-Keekonyokie Maa.” Studies in African Linguistics 30/1 (2001): 1–31.

Rasmussen, Kent [A.]. “Verb tone in Il-Keekonyokie Maa.” MA thesis. Eugene: University of Oregon, 2002.

Richmond, Charles. Maasai Dictionary.  1940.  Reprint edition:  Arcata, California: Humboldt State University, 2016.

Schneider, Cynthia Claire. “Property concept terms in Maasai.” MA thesis. Eugene, University of Oregon, 1998.

Shirtz, Shahar and Doris L. Payne. “Gendered Prefixes in Maa.” Paper presented at the 45th Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europea. Stockholm, 2012.

Shirtz, Shahar and Doris L. Payne. “The Problem of ‘Head’ in Maa (Maasai) Nominal Phrases.” In Selected Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference on African Linguistics, edited by Ọlanikẹ Ọla Orie and Karen W. Sanders, 207–221. ACAL 43. Somerville, Massachusetts: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2013.

Stoks, Hans “Maasai in Context.” Mashuuru District, Kajiado County, Kenya: Oltepesi Cultural Institute, 2018.

Storto, Gianluca. “Agreement in Masai and the syntax of possessive DPs (I).”  University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 8/1 (2003): 187–201.

Vossen, Rainer. Towards A Comparative Study of the Maa Dialects of Kenya and Tanzania. Trans. from German by Marion Frank. Nilo-Saharan: Linguistic Analyses and Documentation, vol. 2. Edited by Franz Rottland and M. Lionel Bender. Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1988.