The original home of the Nilote-speaking Nubian people is in the Nuba Mountains in the Sudan. Some of them migrated to Kenya and settled in various towns including Kibera in Nairobi and in Kisumu in western Kenya. Another small group of less than 20 families settled in Kisii Town of western Kenya in 1914. Their descendants are today settled in Nyanchwa Estate overlooking the Kisii Town central business district. Kisii Town is the head-quarter of Kisii County predominantly inhabited by the Ekegusii-speaking people. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the Nubian community have been able to acquire/learn, be fluent in, and speak up to five different indigenous languages and English in spite of their small number and having been sandwiched among the Ekegusii-speaking people for more than a century. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews with adult Nubian community members, with adult (the oldest) Ekegusii-speaking neighbours, with school teachers, observation of school children, and library research. Initial analyses indicate that they acquire Kiswahili and English mainly through the school system; they naturally acquire and preserve their native language (Nubian) through intra-marriages and preservation and performance of traditional rituals; they acquire Ekegusii through linguistic proximity, they acquire Dholuo, and dialects of the Luhya language through religious activities (mainly Islam), business, intermarriage and other social activities. Conspicuously, they have not, significantly, been assimilated (in language and culture) by the Ekegusii-speaking people in whose territory they have lived for more than a century. There are, however, traces of linguistic influence on the Nubian language by borrowing and nativization of Ekegusii vocabulary. Overall, majority of Nubians in Kisii Town are multilingual, proficient in Ekegusii, Dholuo, dialects of Luhya, Kiswahili, for the schooled-English, and their own Nubian. These findings contradict the experience of the neighbouring Suba-a minority Bantu-speaking people of the Lake Victoria area who were assimilated by the neighbouring Luo speakers-thus suggesting that development of multilingualism by ethnic minorities or otherwise is a function of a complex of factors. The findings present significant insights to scholars in contact linguistics, educational linguistics, sociolinguistics, and anthropology.
Key words: Minority, multilingualism, Nubian, western Kenya
