This Sengwer Trilingual Dictionary was created as a collaborative effort between one linguist and the Sengwer community between March 2022 and April 2023. It is meant, first and foremost, as a tool for the community itself to conserve their linguistic and cultural heritage as well as a way to improve literacy and use in the younger generations. By documenting words and receiving consensus through community reviews and word-collection workshops, we worked to create a standard and a foundation that can be used as a reference for writing and education. In addition, this dictionary can also be a tool that linguists and other academics can use as a reference or inspiration for their research. The creation of the dictionary was funded by the Endangered Languages Fund (ELF) thorugh their Language Legacies grant.
A version of this dictionary was printed and published by Moi University, Kenya. Unfortunately, it is not available to buy any longer. A few copies are still available for community members or universities. If you are one of these and would like a copy delivered, please feel free to contact us.
Note on the IPA transcription
The transcription used in this dictionary is phonemic.
For consonants, this means that allophonic voicing and fricativization is not transcribed but can be heard in the recordings:
For vowels, the low +ATR vowel phoneme /ʌ/ can be heard to vary from [ɔ] to [ʌ]. This is because /ʌ/ and /ɔ/ have undergone a partial merger. A word like 'tyoony' is phonemically transcribed as /tjʌ̂ʌɲ/ but will sound in the recording as [tjɔ̂ɔɲ]. The Sengwer orthography does not make a difference between lexically +ATR morphemes with the vowel /ʌ/ and lexically –ATR morphemes with the vowel /ɔ/. Therefore a word spelt 'lool' in Sengwer is ambiguous as to its ATR specification; it could either be +ATR /lʌʌl/ or –ATR /lɔɔl/. Once any suffix is added, however, the specification will become clear, as they will harmonise regularly.
Four tones were identified in Sengwer: high (á), mid (ā), low (à) and falling (â). Since tone bearing unit is thought to be the syllable, tone is marked on the first vowel only. This means that /áa/ should be interpreted as [áá] rather than, for instance, [áà], and /âa/ should be interpreted as [áà] rather than, for instance, [âà].
Syllable boundaries are not marked, unless they occur between vowels. Since hiatus in Sengwer is very common and can occur between vowels of the same quality, the length of each syllable can be ambiguous for the reader. For instance, /lɛlɛɛɛk/ could be interpreted as /lɛ.lɛ.ɛɛk/ or /lɛ.lɛɛ.ɛk/, however only /lɛ.lɛ.ɛɛk/ is correct. Therefore, in the IPA transcription this word is found as /lɛlɛ.ɛɛk/.