Nandi love poem

Naandi love poem (Cemual, Nandi, Kalenjin Nandi), in the language of kalenjin group of the Nandi peoples, in Kenya, in the Rift Valley (around 1 million speakers).

Versification in Nandi (Kalenjin) a southern Nilotic language (originating from the Nile), attached to the Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic languages.

We can split Kalenjin into several related dialects! Namely: kipsigis, keiyo, tugen nandi, marakwet, sabaot, pokot and terik (Ogot 1976).

Nandi, which is now written, remains an essentially oral language; an oral tradition which transmits the histories and customs of this people to younger generations.

The Nandis are a the Nilotic population living in the district of the same name on the Kapsabet side, in the western Kenya highlands.

They were farmers and livestock breeders. Women performed most of the agricultural work and milking of dairy cows.

They were patrilineal and were grouped by segments in localized clans. Marriage, as in many breeders' societies, implied an important matrimonial compensation with livestock.

From the political organization, only certain individuals were distinguished by their ritual functions (soothsayers). The Nandis were distributed according to a complex system of age classes of cyclic type.