Oropom (Oworopom, Oyoropom, Oropoi) is an African language, possibly spurious and, if real, almost certainly extinct. The language was purportedly once spoken by the Oropom people in northeastern Uganda and northwestern Kenya between the Turkwel River, the Chemorongit Mountains, and Mount Elgon.

Documentation There is only one article containing any original research on the language, Wilson (1970), which only a handful of other articles discuss. John G. Wilson's article furnishes only a short word list, and was written at a time when the language, if it existed, was nearly extinct. The article was based mainly on the limited memories of two very old women, one "a child of one of the residual Oropom families that had remained after the break-up of the Oropom here (Matheniko county)" who "remembered a few words of the language", the other an old lady called Akol "descended from the prisoners taken by the Karimojong on the Turkwel" who was "able to furnish many Oropom words". Under the circumstances, only the barest details of Oropom could be ascertained.

On this basis, Wilson concluded that it must have had at least two dialects: one spoken around the Turkwel area, containing a significant number of Luo words, and some Bantu words, and one spoken around Matheniko county with fewer Luo words. Both contain Kalenjin loanwords.

Classification Wilson ascribed it to the Khoisan group, seemingly based solely on its physical appearance; but this identification is unreliable; Harold C. Fleming describes it as a "ridiculous suggestion". Elderkin (1983) says that "The Oropom data of Wilson (1970) shows some resemblances to Kuliak, some of which could well be mediated through Nilotic, with which it seems to have more resemblances (F. Rottland, personal communication)... There are many fewer resemblances worth noting with Hadza and only a minimal number with Sandawe." He quotes eight potentially similar words between Oropom and Hadza, and four between Oropom and Sandawe. Harold Fleming also notes that "initial inspection suggests some possible commonality" between Oropom and the Kuliak languages, a probably Nilo-Saharan relic group found in Northern Uganda among such tribes as the Ik. However, in the absence of further work, Oropom remains an unclassified language.

Status Bernd Heine, who surveyed the area less than ten years after Wilson and found no trace of the language, expressed skepticism that it existed at all.2004, Mostafa Lameen Souag, Oropom Etymological Lexicon: Exploring an extinct, unclassified Ugandan language Both Lionel Bender and Roger Blench have opined that the language was made up as a joke. Souag (2004) lists several motives Wilson's informants might have had to fabricate the language, and observes that even in his article, Wilson notes that he had to deal with "charlatans" once word got out that he was looking for anyone with knowledge of the language.

Vocabulary This wordlist, taken from the appendix to Wilson (1970), is based on Akol's memories (and thus is considered by Wilson as belonging to the "Turkwell dialect"). He says that he collected words from the other dialect as well, but apparently never published them. The list consists of less than a hundred words, which are likely to be all the vocabulary that will ever be known of the language.

Arrow: motit Bad: girito Black: timu Blue: puthia To boil water: mak Bow: terema To burn: mala Breast: kisina Brother: lukiya Bull: losogol Cat: ariet Cattle: pange Chalcedony: atunatun Child: muto Clever person: woth To cook: ipo Cooking pot (black): kiriente Cooking pot: kodo Cow: ngobo Cowrie shell: pel Crocodile: moro To cut: tubo Day: awar To dig: chege Dog: kokuye Dry: de-au Ear-ring: napiroi Ear: ki-ito Egg: iken Eland: ongor Enemy: bu Eye: kongiye Fat: moda Father: mamunyu Fire: emaa Fish: karu food: araukoo Fool: bung Foot: apaukoo Gazelle: tuth To give: we Goat: ngoror Good: pau Grass: purung Grooved design on pots: nacipa Hair: akopito Hand: akeleng Hard: keter Honey: madik House: apirgoo Leopard: meri To lie down: lura Lion: ru Man: muren Mark on forehead: nageran To marry: ritha Meat: apintoo Milk: coko Moon: Pele Mother-in-law: yo Mother: iyoo Neck bangles: gorom Night: riono Nose: torom Oil: konoye Old man: kuko Old woman: kukuye Penis: oyaa Rain: lat To receive: aruka Red: kopurat Seer: murwe Sheep: merek Sister: pese To sit: paja To sleep: sanan Snake: kwolta Soft: lujuk Soil: nyapid To speak: dokol Spear: ngokit Stone wrist bangle: aurare Sun: Aca To swim: redik Thief: mokorat Tooth: ne-et Tree: telegai Vagina: kibunte To walk: pauwo Warrior: lim Water: lata Wet: ret White: pele Witch: ariet Wizard: rimirim Woman: nakwanta Women's apron: ongor

Bibliography J. G. Wilson. "Preliminary Observations on the Oropom People of Karamoja, their Ethnic Status, Culture, and Postulated Relation to the Peoples of the Late Stone Age." The Uganda Journal, 34, 2, 1970. pp. 125–145. Elderkin, E. D. (1983) 'Tanzanian and Ugandan isolates'. In Nilotic studies: proceedings of the international symposium on languages and history of the Nilotic peoples, Cologne, January 4–6, 1982 vol. 2 / Rainer Vossen, Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst (eds ), vol. 2, pp 499–521. Harold C. Fleming (1983) 'Kuliak External Relations: Step One'. In Nilotic studies: proceedings of the international symposium on languages and history of the Nilotic peoples, Cologne, January 4–6, 1982 vol. 2 / Rainer Vossen, Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst (eds ), vol. 2, p. 429. Blench, Roger M. 1999. "Are the African pygmies an ethnographic fiction?" Central African hunter-gatherers in a multidisciplinary perspective: challenging elusiveness, pp 41–60. Edited by Karen Biesbrouck, Stefan Elders & Gerda Rossel. Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), State University of Leiden. Leiden. Blench, Roger M. 1993. "Recent Developments in African Language Classification" The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns (), edited by Thurstan Shaw, page 135.

References

External links

Biography of John G. Wilson