KENYA-LANGUAGE-YAAKU

Manasseh Matunge, one of the leading local advocates to keep the Yaaku language alive speaks about the challenges of doing so while in the company of Yaaku tribe elders Stephen Leriman Leitiko (L), Johana Saroney Matunge (2L) and Latero Ngilelengi (C) on October 7 , 2010. The Yaaku are a hunter-gatherer tribe who lived cut off in their forest until the intermixing of different peoples in the twentieth century changed their way of life. From the 1930s the Yaaku were assimilated into the culture of the Massai, a warrior tribe with expansionist tendancies. They took to keeping cattle and to wearing the checked magenta and scarlet blankets sported by the Maasai. One of the village elders told AFP "We are the last yaaku speakers and before our generation disappears we need to pass our knowledge on to the children,". AFP PHOTO/Boris BACHORZ (Photo credit should read BORIS BACHORZ/AFP via Getty Images)