| Akie | |
|---|---|
| Akiek, Mosiro | |
| kuuti táá akie | |
| Native to | Tanzania |
| Region | Manyara Region |
| Ethnicity | Akie |
Native speakers | <200 (2015) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mwy (retired) |
| Glottolog | mosi1247 |
Akie (Mosiro, Nandi, "(N)dorobo", Akie: kuuti táá akie 'mouth of the Akie people') is a Kalenjin language spoken in Tanzania. It is a moribund endangered language, with only a few elders who speak it. The Akie people have adopted Maasai and Swahili, and it was reported in 1981 that younger generations are becoming less fluent in Akie. No more than 200 people speak Akie as of 2015.
There is no dialectal variation in Akie.
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | plain | p | t | c ⟨ch⟩ | k | ||
| geminated | tː ⟨tt⟩ | cː ⟨cch⟩ | kː ⟨kk⟩ | ||||
| implosive | ɓ ⟨b⟩ | ɗ ⟨d⟩ | ʄ ⟨j⟩ | ɠ ⟨g⟩ | |||
| Fricative | (f) | s | ʃ ⟨sh⟩ | ||||
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ɲ ⟨ny⟩ | ŋ ⟨ng'⟩ | ||
| geminated | mː ⟨mm⟩ | nː ⟨nn⟩ | |||||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ ⟨r⟩ | ɽ ⟨rr⟩ | |||||
| Lateral | plain | l | |||||
| geminated | lː ⟨ll⟩ | ||||||
| Approximant | plain | w | j ⟨y⟩ | ||||
| geminated | ⁱj ⟨yy⟩ | ||||||
Geminated consonants /tː/, /cː/, /kː/, /mː/, /nː/ are not always distinguished by all speakers. /p/ is often realized as [ɸ], and also as [β] between vowels, but also as its basic value of [p] in all positions. Voiceless stops are typically realized as weak fortis consonants, however after nasals and intervocalically, they are voiced. [f] is only found in loanwords.
| +ATR | -ATR | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Central | Back | Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | i | u | ɪ | ʊ | ||
| Mid | e | o | ɛ | ɔ | ||
| Open | a | |||||
Vowel length is distinctive.
Mosiro is known among the current Akie community in Tanzania as a clan name, and not as a linguistic variety mentioned by Maguire in his Il-Torobo 1948 paper, If this language variety has ever existed, it must have been some 80 years ago, but today Mosiro should only be retained as a clan name within the Akie ethnic group.