[7] The Cushitic languages are one of the largest language families of East Africa, spoken in an area stretching from North-East Sudan at the Egyptian border, embracing Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, a considerable part of Kenya, and some areas of Northern Tanzania.
[9] The name is formed from the Samburu definite article l-, el- and the El Molo word molu (phonetically [ˈmóˑlo̝]) 'this person'.
[10] An unsolved question is whether the Elmolo were “originally” speakers of a Cushitic language, and still another is whether they were always fishers or rather pastoralists who turned to fishing out of necessity in an area unsuitable for animal husbandry.
Heine (1982) favors the first hypothesis, and claims that traditional fishing in Kenya’s Rift Valley is likely to go back to Eastern Cushites originating from the Ethiopian Highlands.
They are fishermen concentrated in two villages in Marsabit District on the southeast shore of Lake Turkana, between El Molo bay and Mount Kulal.
The original Cushitic-Elmolo can be divided into items of basic vocabulary (such as body parts, numerals, names of plants and animals, and kinship terms).
Founder and chairman, Michael Basili, of the Gura Pau was a teacher and later a schoolmaster and Education Officer of the Loiyangalani Division.
[16] Efforts were dropped in 2012 because it was difficult to implement and extend Cushitic lexical material as it was limited, or its knowledge was too unevenly spread among the community to be any help.
The names a language bestows upon objects, plants or animals go beyond mere labels, but rather include a great deal of information about the proper place this community view this animal in the world, and can reveal how a culture imagines the proper place for these creatures in the wild.