|
Dizi People
Dizi (also known as the Maji) is the name of an ethnic group living in southern Ethiopia. They share a number of somatic similarities with certain culturally (but not always linguistically) related peoples of south-western Ethiopia, which include the Sheko and Nao, the Gimira (She, Bench, Mere), the Tsara, the Dime, the Aari and certain sub-groups of the Basketo people. A. E. Jensen has gathered these groups under the label of the "ancient peoples of southern Ethiopia". They speak the Dizin language (part of the Omotic languages). Before their forced incorporation into the Ethiopian Empire in the 1890s, based on their own statements and the evidence of numerous abandoned terraced hillsides, the Dizi are estimated to have numbered between 50,000 and 100,000. However, as Haberland observes, the imposition of an outside authority and its misrule led to a massive depopulation due to the abuses of the '' gebbar'' system, slave-raiding, "famine, disease and a growing sense of ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dizin Language Dizin (often called “Dizi” or “Maji” in the literature) is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by the Dizi people, primarily in the Maji woreda of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, located in southwestern Ethiopia. The 2007 census listed 33,927 speakers. A population of 17,583 was identified as monolinguals in 1994.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. The language has basic SOV (subject–object–verb) word order, tones, and is largely suffixing. Phonologically, "Features of the Dizin sound system include glottalized consonants, syllabic nasals, lengthened vowels, three phonemic tone levels and contour tones. Western Dizin has phonemic retroflex consonants. The glottal stop is analyzed as phonemic word initially before nasals, but not phonemic elsewhere". (Beachy 2005:iv) Dizin, together with the Sheko and Nayi languages, i ... [...More Info...] |