Luyia (the spelling Luhya is not currently favored) belongs to the Central-Luhya Group of Bantu (Guthrie E32) and is spoken in neighboring areas of Kenya and Uganda near Lake Victoria.
The 1989 Kenya census lists 3.1 million with a "tribal affiliation" of "Luhya." Figures for all relevant countries are not available. Voegelin and Voegelin (1979) list 654,000 speakers for Luyia proper (E32) and 1.02 million for the group E30 (1-5).
Luyia is a regional first language. It is heard on Voice of Kenya.
Nandwa (personal communication, 1983) reports there was a standardized orthography, but due to political pressures different orthographies have been developed in some of the dialects.
At present it has been suggested that all the dialects of Luyia would need separate materials due to political and cultural differences (Kanyoro and Nandwa, personal communication, 1984), but it is not clear how many sets this would entail.
Copyright ©2006 African Studies Center. For questions or comments about this site, please contact the Webmaster.