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Omotic Languages
The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have complex tonal systems (for example, the Bench language). The languages have around 6.2 million speakers. The group is generally classified as belonging to the Afroasiatic language family, but this is disputed by some. Four separate "Omotic" groups are accepted by '' Glottolog'' 4.0 and Güldemann (2018): Ta-Ne-Omotic, Dizoid (Maji), Mao, and Aroid ("South Omotic"). Languages The North and South Omotic branches ("Nomotic" and "Somotic") are universally recognized, with some dispute as to the composition of North Omotic. The primary debate is over the placement of the Mao languages. Bender (2000) classifies Omotic languages as follows: * South Omotic / Aroid ( Hamer-Banna, Aari, Dime, Karo) *North Omotic / Non-Aroid **Mao *** Bambas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east and northeast, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia has a total area of . As of 2022, it is home to around 113.5 million inhabitants, making it the 13th-most populous country in the world and the 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates. Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out to the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithic period. Southwestern Ethiopia has been proposed as a possible homeland of the Afroasiatic la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with '' phoneme''. Tonal languages are common in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific. Tonal languages are different from pitch-accent languages in that tonal languages can have each syllable with an independent tone whilst pitch-accent languages may have one syllable in a word or morpheme that is more prominent than the others. Mechanics Most languages use pitch as intonation to conv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ganza Language
Ganza, also known as Ganzo or Koma, is an Omotic language spoken in the Al Kurumik District of the Blue Nile (state) in Sudan and in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, specifically in the village districts of Penishuba and Yabeldigis. It also goes by the names Ganzo, Gwami, Koma, and Koma-Ganza. Phonology Ganza does not utilize consonant length phonemically. Although vowel length is typically contrastive in Omotic languages The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have co ..., Ganza does not have a clear contrast between long and short vowel phonemes. Instead, Ganza has predictable utterance-final vowel lengthening and a set of monosyllabic words with double vowels. References *Smolders, Joshua. 2015. ''A Wordlist of Ganza''. Addis Ababa: SIL Ethiopia Notes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seze Language
Seze (or Sezo) is an Afro-Asiatic Omotic language, spoken in the western part of Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ..., near the town of Begi and just north of the Hozo-speaking community. References Languages of Ethiopia Omotic languages Mao languages {{AfroAsiatic-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hozo Language
Hozo is an Afroasiatic language spoken mostly in the Kondala woreda of Mirab Welega Zone (Western Oromia) by peoples generically known as "Mao". There are smaller groups of Hozo speakers in Mana Sibu Mana Sibu is one of the 180 Aanaas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. Part of the West Welega Zone, Mana Sibu is bordered on the south by Jarso, on the southwest by Begi, on the north by the Benishangul-Gumuz Region, and on the southeast by Nejo. ... woreda. The term Hozo is usually understood by the Mao to refer to a clan. Hozo speakers prefer to call themselves Amo. Hozo and Seze are sometimes called Begi Mao. Hozo is spoken by roughly 3,000 people in Ethiopia. Hozo is also a clan in the Begi area. The Hozo language is also known as Begi-Mao and Mao of Begi. Its classification is Afro-Asiatic, Omotic, and Mao. The word Mao is Omotic and means ‘man; people’, occurring as a:ɪin Seze and as ɔ:in Hozo. Mao is frequently used as an ethnic term. There is a kind of Mao identity a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bambassi Language
Bambassi (native name: Màwés Aasʼè) is an Omotic Afroasiatic language spoken in Ethiopia around the towns of Bambasi and Didessa in the area east of Asosa in Benishangul-Gumuz Region Benishangul-Gumuz ( am, ቤንሻንጉል ጉሙዝ, Benšangul Gumuz) is a regional state in northwestern Ethiopia to the border of Sudan. It was previously known as Region 6. The region's capital is Assosa. Following the adoption of the 1 .... The parent language group is the East Mao group. Alternative names for the language are Bambeshi, Siggoyo, Amam, Fadiro, Northern Mao, Didessa and Kere. The most current information on the number of Bambassi speakers is not known, as the 2007 census grouped the Mao languages together, despite low lexical similarity. 33,683 mother tongue speakers of Maogna (covering Bambassi, Hozo and Seze) were listed. __NOTOC__ Similarities Bambassi has a 31% lexical similarity with other Omotic languages. Phonology Bambassi has 5 vowels: /a, e, i, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karo Language (Ethiopia)
Karo (also Cherre, Kere, Kerre) is a South Omotic language spoken in the Debub (South) Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region in Ethiopia. Karo is described as being closely related to its neighbor, Hamer-Banna, with a lexical similarity of 81%, and is considered a dialect of Hamer by Blench (2006), but as a separate language belonging to the ''Hamer-Karo'' subfamily in Glottolog. The Karo people, who live close to the lower Omo River, use colorful bodywork, complex headdresses and body scars to express beauty and importance within the community. 2,400 speakers are using the Karo language. Basic vocabulary In percentages of basic vocabulary scored by 14 Omotic The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have co ... languages against 13 others, Karo s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dime Language
Dime or Dima is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in the northern part of the Selamago district in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region of Ethiopia, around Mount Smith. Dime divides into at least two dialects, which include Us'a and Gerfa. It has six case suffixes in addition to an unmarked nominative. It is overwhelmingly suffixing, but uses prefixes for demonstratives and reduplication. Phonologically, it is noteworthy among the Omotic languages for having velar and uvular fricative phonemes. The basic word order is SOV (subject–object–verb), as in other Omotic languages, indeed as in all the languages of the core of the Ethiopian Language Area. The language, as well as the Dime people themselves, reportedly decreased in numbers over the 20th century due to predation from their neighbors the Bodi, and both are in danger of extinction. According to Ethiopian census figures, the 1994 census reported 6293 speakers of the Dime language in the Southern Nations, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aari Language
Aari (also rendered ''Ari'', ''Ara'', ''Aro'', ''Aarai'') is an Omotic language spoken by the Aari people in the South Omo Zone of Ethiopia. Dialects are Bako, Biyo (Biya), Laydo, Seyki, Shangama, Sido, Wubahamer, Zeddo. History The Aari people suffered considerable pressures to assimilate after the conquest of the Omo River region by the Ethiopian Empire in the late 1800s, which resulted in the widespread adoption the Amharic language there. Nevertheless, the Aari language survived; today, many Aari are also fluent in Amharic. Current status Aari had a population of 285,000 first language speakers in 2007, of whom 129,350 were monolingual. 13,300 second language users were also recorded in 2007. The ethnic population was 289,835 as of 2007. Aari is used at home and at local markets. The size of the Aari tribe is growing, and thus the Aari language has seen an increase in language use and development in recent years. The language is learned by all of the Aari people and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamer-Banna Language
Hamer or Hamer-Banna (Hamer: ''hámar aapó'') is a language within the South Omotic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. It is spoken primarily in southern Ethiopia by the Hamar people, Banna people, and by speakers of Karo. There is a pidginized variety in local use. Phonology Consonants Hamer has six places of articulation for consonants, and eleven manners of articulation, though the system is not entirely orthogonal. /p/ may optionally be realized as �in any position, except as /pp/ and /mp/, in which cases it is always realized as Several phonemes have special intervocalic or prevocalic realizations: /VbV/: �/Vka/: /#qa/: ʼ/#qo, #qu/: �/VɓV/: �/VɗV/: �/#tʼa, #tʼi/: �ʼ/VtʃʼV/: ʃ /n/ assimilates to a following velar (i.e., as �. Consonant length is distinctive non-initially. Long /ɾ/ is realized as a trilled /r/. Vowels There are five basic vowels The vowels are further subdivided into two main categories (with a third being ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lionel Bender (linguist)
Marvin Lionel Bender (August 18, 1934 – February 19, 2008) was an American linguist. Life Bender was born August 18, 1934, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He travelled throughout the world, particularly in Northeast Africa, and was an accomplished chess player. Dr. Bender died of complications from a stroke and brain hemorrhage on February 19, 2008 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Career Bender wrote and co-wrote several books, publications and essays on the languages of Africa, particularly those spoken in Ethiopia and Sudan, and was a major contributor to Ethiopian Studies. He did extensive work on the Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages spoken locally. Together with J. Donald Bowen, Robert L. Cooper, and Charles A. Ferguson, Bender carried out the Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in East Africa, funded by the Ford Foundation in 1968-1970. He later conducted other research sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Among other works, his books include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Omotic Languages
The Aroid or Ari-Banna (formerly South Omotic or Somotic) languages possibly belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and are spoken in Ethiopia. Languages There are five Aroid languages: * ''Aari-Gayil languages'' ** Aari ** Gayil * ''Hamer-Karo languages'' ** Hamer-Banna ** Karo (Ethiopia) * Dime External classification The classification of South Omotic (also called Aroid) is highly disputed and it may be a separate language family. Karo is sometimes considered as a dialect of Hamer, but considered as a separate language by Glottolog which groups both in a ''Hamer-Karo'' subfamily. Zaborski (1986) and Lamberti (1993) consider South Omotic to be a separate branch of Cushitic, renaming it as ''West Cushitic''. Bender (2000, 2003) notes that South Omotic is in fact quite divergent from other Afroasiatic languages, and suggests that it may in fact have connections with Nilo-Saharan, such as Surmic and Nilotic. Citing lexical similarities with Surmic and other non- Nilotic Nil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
