Qwara, or Qwareña (called "Falasha" (Hwarasa) in some older sources), was one of two
Agaw dialects, spoken by a subgroup of the
Beta Israel (
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 ...
n
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
s) of the
Qwara area. It is a dialect of
Qimant. It is nearly extinct. Several early Falashan manuscripts, using the
Ge'ez alphabet, exist; in more recent times, the language has been recorded by several linguists and travellers, starting with Flad in 1866.
The language was on the decline in the early 20th century, as it was being replaced by
Amharic. During
Operation Solomon, most of its remaining speakers were airlifted to
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, where it continues to lose ground to
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
.
See also
*
Kayla dialect
Kayla, or Kayliñña ( Ge'ez: ካይላ ''kāylā'', for the people, Ge'ez: ካይልኛ ''kāylññā'', Kayla, Amharic, and Tigrinya for the language) is one of two Agaw dialects formerly spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel (Ethiopia ...
References
Further reading
#
#Flad, J. M. (1866). A Short Description of the Falasha and Kamants in Abyssinia: Together with an Outline of the Elements and a Vocabulary of the Falasha Language. Mission Press.
#Freeburg, E. (2013). The Cost of Revival: the Role of Hebrew in Jewish Language Endangerment (Doctoral dissertation, Yale University).
External links
Endangered Languages Profile for HwarasaSIL – Sociolinguist report of the Kemant (Qimant) Language of EthiopiaQwara language map
Jewish languages
Jews and Judaism in Ethiopia
Languages of Ethiopia
Central Cushitic languages
Endangered Afroasiatic languages
Endangered languages of Africa
{{Jewish-hist-stub