Turkana
Eastern Sudanic family · Eastern Nilotic branch · Africa
Turkana puts its words in verb-subject-object order (VSO), one of only 95 with that basic order among the 1,376 languages WALS codes for this feature.
On Position of Case Affixes, WALS codes Turkana as “Mixed morphological case strategies with none primary”, a value held by 9 of the 1,031 languages coded, Swahili and Mangarrayi among them.
The closest grammar profile to Turkana in the atlas belongs to Berber (Middle Atlas), an Afro-Asiatic language: the two agree on 26 of the 42 features both have coded.
Contrast Turkana with Berber (Middle Atlas) or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Turkana, rarest first.
- Coding of Nominal PluralityMorphological plural with no method primary60 of 1,066
- Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional MorphologyPredominantly prefixing58 of 969
- Alignment of Verbal Person MarkingSplit alignment28 of 380
- Asymmetrical Case-MarkingSubtractive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking20 of 261
Inside the Eastern Sudanic family
Turkana matches the most frequent Eastern Sudanic value on 24 of the 45 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (53%). Among the 11 Eastern Sudanic languages profiled here, that rate ranks tenth from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Turkana; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Turkana for 50 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 44 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Turkana shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Nouns and pronouns 9
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Cases | 6-7 case categories | 37 of 261 |
| Definite Articles | Neither definite nor indefinite article | 198 of 620 |
| Ordinal Numerals | First, two-th, three-th | 110 of 321 |
| Indefinite Articles | Neither indefinite nor definite | 198 of 534 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | 100 of 225 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | 126 of 234 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Adpositions without person marking | 209 of 378 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical | 94 of 168 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
Noun phrases 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | WITH-languages: 'and' and 'with' are identical | 103 of 234 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Prohibitive | Special imperative + normal negative | 55 of 496 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect prefixes | 153 of 1,131 |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Suppletion according to tense | 36 of 193 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | 292 of 548 |
| Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | 153 of 193 |
| Verbal Number and Suppletion | No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples | 159 of 193 |
Word order 12
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject follows verb (VS) | 194 of 1,496 |
| Position of Polar Question Particles | Question particle at end of sentence | 314 of 884 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Noun-genitive (NGen) | 468 of 1,249 |
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | Verb-object-oblique (VOX) | 210 of 500 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Prepositions | 511 of 1,184 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem) | 562 of 1,225 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object follows verb (VO) | 705 of 1,518 |
| Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral follows noun (NNum) | 608 of 1,154 |
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Initial subordinator word | 398 of 659 |
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj) | 879 of 1,367 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial | 615 of 902 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause follows noun (NRel) | 579 of 824 |
Simple clauses 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | P precedes A | 57 of 379 |
| Predicative Possession | Topic Possessive | 48 of 240 |
| Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Double-object construction | 84 of 378 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Sequential type but no purposive type | 35 of 118 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | 395 of 1,157 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding | 151 of 386 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is possible | 175 of 386 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No zero realization of third person S forms | 181 of 380 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of both the A and P arguments | 193 of 378 |
| Polar Questions | Question particle | 585 of 955 |
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs | 437 of 711 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | 269 of 386 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
Vocabulary 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Hand and Arm | Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm' | 228 of 617 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |