| Markwet | |
| States: | Kenya |
| Ethnicity: | Marakwet |
| Speakers: | 180,000 |
| Date: | 2009 census |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Nilo-Saharan |
| Fam2: | Eastern Sudanic |
| Fam3: | Nilotic |
| Fam4: | Southern Nilotic |
| Fam5: | Kalenjin |
| Fam6: | Nandi–Markweta |
| Dia1: | Endo (Northern) |
| Dia2: | Sambirir (Southern) |
| Iso3: | enb |
| Glotto: | mark1255 |
| Glottorefname: | Markweeta |
Markwet (Markweeta) is a Kalenjin language of Kenya. The regional terms Endo and Sambirir (or the clan name Talai) have been used for northern and southern Markweta, but they are not distinct dialects. The unmarked word order is Verb–subject–object.
Markweta has five basic vowels: . All vowels have variants based on tongue root position and length, for a total of 20 distinct vowel phonemes.
The vowels and are both pronounced like, and can only be distinguished by looking at affixes.[1]
Markweta has 13 consonants:
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Trill | pronounced as /link/ |
Markweta has gender. Gender is realized as a prefix added primarily for person nouns and animal names, but sometimes inanimate objects.
The prefixes kaa- and kii- are used to indicate nominalization.