Oropom Language

Oropom Language

Oropom (Oworopom, Oyoropom, Oropoi) is a dubious and, if real, almost certainly extinct African language, purportedly once spoken in northeastern Uganda and northwestern Kenya between the Turkwel River, Chemorongit Mountains, and Mount Elgon, by the Oropom people. There is only one article containing any original research on the language, Wilson 1970, which only a handful of other articles discuss. The Wilson article furnishes only a short word list (though it says that "the process of collection is still going on"), and it was written at a time when the language, if it existed was nearly extinct. It 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 the language could be ascertained. Bernd Heine has expressed skepticism as to whether it existed at all.

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, one around Matheniko county with fewer Luo words. Both contain Kalenjin loanwords.

Wilson ascribes it to the Khoisan group, seemingly based solely on their physical appearance; but this identification is unreliable (Harold 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 8 potentially similar words between Oropom and Hadza, and 4 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.