[2] Ehret and Nurse (1981) suggest that Cushitic-speaking peoples reached the Taita Hills as early as the second millennium BC.
Analysis of the type of South Cushitic loanwords that were adopted by Bantu speakers in the Taita Hills indicates that these South Cushitic communities probably formed a majority of the region's population prior to the arrival of Bantu peoples.
Some of the borrowed Cushitic terms also subsequently underwent sound changes and/or alterations in morphology after adoption by Bantu Taita speakers.
He adds that these word-borrowings may have been adopted indirectly via Taita Bantu intermediaries, who had themselves borrowed the terms from South Cushites at an earlier date.
These Cushitic former residents are remembered by a variety of often interchanging names, including the "Bisha", "Sikimi", "Nyamba" and "Wasi".