Dholuo, commonly called Luo, is a Western Nilotic language spoken around the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, chiefly in western Kenya around Kisumu and in adjoining parts of northern Tanzania. Estimates suggest four to five million speakers, making it one of Kenya's largest languages. It belongs to a wider cluster of Luo languages stretching north through Uganda and South Sudan, which includes Acholi and Lango, though these are separate languages rather than dialects of Dholuo. The language is tonal, uses the Latin alphabet, and unlike its Bantu neighbours does not build words around noun-class prefixes, a difference that makes it stand out sharply in the region. Luo speakers in Kenya are typically also fluent in Swahili and English, the country's official languages, and much daily life moves between all three.
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