Daasanach (also known as Dasenech, Daasanech, Dathanaik, Dathanaic, Dathanik, Dhaasanac, Gheleba, Geleba, Geleb, Gelebinya, Gallab, Galuba, Gelab, Gelubba, Dama, Marille, Merile, Merille, Morille, Reshiat, Russia) is a

Cushitic language 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 ...

spoken by the Daasanach 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 ...

South Sudan South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...

and

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

whose homeland is along the Lower

Omo River The Omo River (; also called Omo-Bottego) in southern Ethiopia is the largest Ethiopian river outside the Nile Basin. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia, and it empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Kenya. T ...

and on the shores of

Lake Turkana Lake Turkana () is a saline lake in the Kenyan Rift Valley, in northern Kenya, with its far northern end crossing into Ethiopia. It is the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake. By volume it is the world ...

.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Phonology

Consonants

* A glottal may also occur in word-initial position, when preceding vowels in various positions * /ð/ may freely alternate with an alveolar among speakers. * /w/ may be heard as a fricative when before front vowels. * Sounds /t̪, k/ can be heard as spiranted �, ɣin intervocalic positions. /k/ can also be heard as uvular �when in between back vowel sounds. * /k/ can be heard as a uvular when before back vowel sounds. * /ɗ̠/ in intervocalic positions can be deglottalized, and heard as either retroflex sounds �or �

Vowels

Writing system

Jim Ness and Susan Ness of Bible Translation and Literacy and Wycliffe Bible Translators devised a practical spelling and published a 1995 alphabet book. Yergalech Komoi and Gosh Kwanyangʼ published another alphabet book in 1995. An edition of the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...

was published in 1997, and other Bible translations were published with this spelling in 1999. The alphabet was later revised, with the digraph replaced by a bowl-struck ''đ'' (approximately ). Vowels can be given with the acute accent, , or the circumflex accent .

Notes

External links

Linguistic map of Daasanach language at Muturzikin.com
*

World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-RO ...