The case of dead and non-used Nandi anthroponyms

This paper discusses the dead and non-used Nandi anthroponyms with the aim of highlighting the factors behind their disappearance, non-use or declining usage. Although traditionally the Nandi naming system is elaborate and spans a person's lifetime, present day naming practices show that various types of anthroponym have low usage and others are no longer used. Since the Nandi naming system is intertwined with the Nandi way of life, anthroponyms act as catalogues of past and present Nandi histories. Therefore, when certain anthroponyms die, certain forms of cultural knowledge and history embedded in them are also lost. Language is a complex system and its building blocks are nested, so the loss of certain anthroponymic knowledge, which is part of the Nandi language, leads to the loss of certain linguistic knowledge in the language. This in turn may usher in linguistic turbulence that might bring about the death of the Nandi language.