Our tongues are rare: the mysterious Dorobo language known as Omaiyo

The term “Dorobo”, taken from the Maa word iltorobo (“those without cattle”), is used to describe unrelated small hunter-gatherer communities of East Africa, many of which have integrated with larger pastoralist communities such as the Maasai. This report will describe a visit to the last speakers of an unclassified Dorobo language, known by linguists as Omaiyo, which was conducted in northern Tanzania in the summer of 2018.