The Dullay languages belong to the

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2 ...

subgroup of the

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...

language family and are spoken in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. Dullay is a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

consisting of the Gawwada and Tsamai languages. Blench (2006) places most of Bussa in the Konsoid languages, and counts several Gawwada varieties as distinct languages.Roger Blench, 2006
''The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List''
(ms) : Gawwada (Ale), Tsamai, Dihina, Dobase (Lohu, Mashole), Gergere, Gollango (Gaba?), Gorrose, Harso The name Dullay is derived from the name Dullay-speaking groups use for the Weito River. Other terms that have been used for this language family in scientific literature are Werizoid (from the former administrative name of the area inhabited by Dullay speakers) and Qawko (from the word "man" in Dullay languages).

Notes

Further reading