|
Awngi
The Awngi language, in older publications also called Awiya (an inappropriate ethnonym), is a Central Cushitic language spoken by the Awi people, living in Central Gojjam in northwestern Ethiopia. Most speakers of the language live in the Agew Awi Zone of the Amhara Region, but there are also communities speaking the language in various areas of Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region. Until recently, Kunfäl, another Southern Agaw language spoken in the area west of Lake Tana, has been suspected to be a separate language. It has now been shown to be linguistically close to Awngi, and it should be classified as a dialect of that language. Phonology Vowels The central vowel is the default epenthetic vowel of the language and almost totally predictable in its occurrence. Likewise, , normally an allophone of , is fossilized in some words and might be justified as a separate phoneme. Consonants *Palatal and velar together in Awngi form only one place of articulation, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agaw Languages
The Agaw or Central Cushitic languages are Afro-Asiatic languages spoken by several groups in Ethiopia and, in one case, Eritrea. They form the main substratum influence on Amharic and other Ethiopian Semitic languages. Classification The Central Cushitic languages are classified as follows (after Appleyard): * Awngi (South Agaw) spoken southwest of Lake Tana, much the largest, with over 350,000 speakers :(Kunfal, spoken west of Lake Tana, is poorly recorded but most likely a dialect of Awngi) * Northern Agaw: :*Bilen–Xamtanga: ::* Bilen (North) spoken (70,000 speakers) in Eritrea around the town of Keren and eastern Sudan around the town of Kassala ::* Xamtanga (Central Agaw; also called Khamir, Khamta) 143,000 speakers in the North Amhara Region :* Qimant (Western Agaw) nearly extinct, spoken by the Qemant in Semien Gondar Zone ::(dialects Qwara – nearly extinct, spoken by Beta Israel formerly living in Qwara, now in Israel; Kayla – extinct, formerly spoken ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Cushitic
The Agaw or Central Cushitic languages are Afro-Asiatic languages spoken by several groups in Ethiopia and, in one case, Eritrea. They form the main substratum influence on Amharic and other Ethiopian Semitic languages. Classification The Central Cushitic languages are classified as follows (after Appleyard): * Awngi (South Agaw) spoken southwest of Lake Tana, much the largest, with over 350,000 speakers :(Kunfal, spoken west of Lake Tana, is poorly recorded but most likely a dialect of Awngi) * Northern Agaw: :*Bilen–Xamtanga: ::* Bilen (North) spoken (70,000 speakers) in Eritrea around the town of Keren and eastern Sudan around the town of Kassala ::* Xamtanga (Central Agaw; also called Khamir, Khamta) 143,000 speakers in the North Amhara Region :* Qimant (Western Agaw) nearly extinct, spoken by the Qemant in Semien Gondar Zone ::(dialects Qwara – nearly extinct, spoken by Beta Israel formerly living in Qwara, now in Israel; Kayla – extinct, formerly spoken by so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agew Awi Zone
Agew Awi ( am, አገው አዊ) is a zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. It is named for the Awi sub-group of the Agaw people, some of whom live in this Zone. Agew Awi Zone is bordered on the west by Benishangul-Gumuz Region, on the north by North Gondar Zone and on the east by West Gojjam. The administrative centre of Agew Awi is Injibara; other towns include Chagni, Agew Gimjabet, Tilili, Adis Kidame, Azena, Zigem, Jawi and Dangila. Topographically speaking, Agaw Awi is relatively flat and fertile, whose elevations vary from 1,800 to 3,100 m above sea level, with an average altitude of about 2,300 m. The Zone is crossed by about nine permanent rivers which drain into the Abay (or Blue Nile); other water features include two crater lakes, Zengena and Tirba, and Zimbiri marsh which is located 5 km south-west of Addis Kidam. Local forests include Dukma and Apini, which are located on either side of the town of Kidamaja, Zengena forest around Lake Zengena and Goobi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cushitic Languages
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 the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, Saho, and Sidama. Official status The Cushitic languages with the greatest number of total speakers are Oromo (37 million), Somali (22 million), Beja (3.2 million), Sidamo (3 million), and Afar (2 million). Oromo serves as one of the official working languages of Ethiopia and is also the working language of several of the states within the Ethiopian federal system including Oromia, Harari and Dire Dawa regional states and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region. Somali is the first of two official languages of Somalia and three official languages of the self declared republic of Somaliland. It also serves as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benishangul-Gumuz Region
Benishangul-Gumuz ( am, ቤንሻንጉል ጉሙዝ, Benšangul Gumuz) is a Regions of Ethiopia, 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 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia, 1995 constitution, the region was created from the westernmost portion of the Gojjam province (the part north of the Abay River), and the northwestern portion of the Welega Province (the part south of the Abay). The name of the region comes from two peoples – Berta people, Berta (also called Benishangul) and Gumuz people, Gumuz. The region has faced major challenges to economic development, due to lack of transportation and communications infrastructure. The Abay River (Blue Nile) divides Benishangul-Gumuz, and there was no bridge crossing it until 2012. The major road that connects the Metekel Zone and the Assosa Zone was built by the China Construction Company in 2012. The road has a 365- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metekel Zone
Metekel Zone is located in Benshangul-Gumuz of Ethiopia. It is bordered on the south and southwest by Kamashi, on the west by Sudan, and on the north and east by the Amhara region. The Abay River defines the Zone's boundaries with Kamashi, while the Dinder River defines part of its boundary with the Amhara region. The administrative center of Metekel Zone is Gilgil Beles; other towns include Manbuk. The highest point is Mount Belaya (3,131 meters), which is part of the Dangur range. MIDROC Gold reported in 2009 that it was exploring the Zone for gold deposits. Demographics Based on the 2007 Census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this Zone has a total population of 276,367, of whom 139,119 are men and 137,248 women. 37,615 or 13.61% of population are urban inhabitants. A total of 58,515 households were counted in this Zone, which results in an average of 4.72 persons to a household, and 56,734 housing units. The five largest ethnic groups r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plosive Consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips (, ), or glottis (). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in and , and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. Terminology The terms ''stop, occlusive,'' and ''plosive'' are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Velar Consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive and the movements of the dorsum are not very precise, velars easily undergo assimilation, shifting their articulation back or to the front depending on the quality of adjacent vowels. They often become automatically ''fronted'', that is partly or completely palatal before a following front vowel, and ''retracted'', that is partly or completely uvular before back vowels. Palatalised velars (like English in ''keen'' or ''cube'') are sometimes referred to as palatovelars. Many languages also have labialized velars, such as , in which the articulation is accompanied by rounding of the lips. There are also labial–velar consonants, which are doubly articulated at the velum and at the lips, such as . This distinction disappears with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uvular Consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and the symbol for the voiced fricative is used instead. Uvular affricates can certainly be made but are rare: they occur in some southern High-German dialects, as well as in a few African and Native American languages. (Ejective uvular affricates occur as realizations of uvular stops in Lillooet, Kazakh, or as allophonic realizations of the ejective uvular fricative in Georgian.) Uvular consonants are typically incompatible with advanced tongue root, and they often cause retraction of neighboring vowels. Uvular consonants in IPA The uvular consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: , being/existence , - !χʼ , uvular ejective fricative , Tlingit , x̱'aan , '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labialization
Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded. The most common labialized consonants are labialized velars. Most other labialized sounds also have simultaneous velarization, and the process may then be more precisely called labio-velarization. In phonology, labialization may also refer to a type of assimilation process. Occurrence Labialization is the most widespread secondary articulation in the world's languages. It is phonemically contrastive in Northwest Caucasian (e.g. Adyghe), Athabaskan, and Salishan language families, among others. This contrast is reconstructed also for Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages; and it survives in Latin and some Romance languages. It is also found in the Cushitic an ... [...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 Eritrea–Ethiopia border, north, Djibouti to the Djibouti–Ethiopia border, northeast, Somalia to the Ethiopia–Somalia border, east and northeast, Kenya to the Ethiopia–Kenya border, south, South Sudan to the Ethiopia–South Sudan border, west, and Sudan to the Ethiopia–Sudan border, northwest. Ethiopia has a total area of . As of 2022, it is home to around 113.5 million inhabitants, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, 13th-most populous country in the world and the List of African countries by population, 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 Plate, Africa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation. The International Phonetic Alphabet has distinct letters for many voiceless and modally voiced pairs of consonants (the obstruents), such as . Also, there are diacritics for voicelessness, and , which is used for letters with a descender. Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such as vowels and sonorant consonants: . In Russian use of the IPA, the voicing diacritic may be turned for voicelessness, e.g. . Voiceless vowels and other sonorants Sonorants are sounds such as vowels and nasals that are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually allophonically. For example, the Japanese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
