Dime or Dima is an

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 spoken in the northern part of the Selamago district in the

Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region The Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (often abbreviated as SNNPR; ) was a regional state in southwestern Ethiopia. It was formed from the merger of five ''kililoch'', called Regions 7 to 11, following the regional council ele ...

(SNNP) of

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 ...

, around Mount Smith. Dime divides into at least two dialects, which include Us'a and Gerfa. It has six case suffixes in addition to an unmarked nominative. It is overwhelmingly suffixing, but uses prefixes for demonstratives and has reduplication. Phonologically, it is noteworthy among the

Omotic languages The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region and southeastern Sudan in Blue Nile State. The Geʽez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others ...

for having phonemic velar and uvular fricatives. The basic word order is subject–object–verb (SOV), as in other Omotic languages, and indeed in all members of the core of the Ethiopian Language Area. The language, as well as the Dime people themselves, reportedly decreased in number over the 20th century due to predations from their neighbors the Bodi, and both are in danger of extinction. According to official Ethiopian figures, the 1994 census reported 6293 speakers of the Dime language in the SNNP region alone;''1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region'', Vol. 1, part 1
Table 2.14 in the 2007 census, only 574 speakers were reported for all of Ethiopia. Further, because the Dime language still lacks a writing system and there are no local schools to promote the use of the language, it is even more threatened.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Free variation

Dime undergoes phonological processes when speaking and one of them is free variation. Free variation is a phenomenon of two or more sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered as wrong by a native speaker of Dime. h and ʔ are free variation word initially in some lexemes. : ʔˈalfe and halfe Knife : ʔˈaʁe and haʁe wood, knife : ʔààke and hààke to pick up : ʔaay and haay grass : yízí and hízí to run : yín or ʔín you (obj.)

Gemination

Dime has a lot of consonant gemination, which mostly occurs in the middle and final position of words, which distinguishes the meaning of lexemes. : túmú (deep) - túmmú (stomach) : ʔoloχ (quick) - ʔolloχ (slowly) : ʔane (hand) - ʔanne (wild life)

Syllable structure

Dime has both closed and open syllables as well as super-heavy syllables. Most consonants can occur in the middle and at the end of the word. Dime also has consonant clusters, which are mostly made up of only two members. At the end of the word: : gušš nails : físt sneeze : tálk borrow : sáánk floor : túss pillar In the middle of the word: : dámpe tobacco : básumb fearful : gázde boundry : bedze out

Morphology and Syntax

Definiteness

A definite noun is one which refers to a specific entity. Morphologically, Dime distinguishes definite from indefinite nouns. Definiteness is marked by the suffix -is. :ʔ́ehé a house - ʔ́éh-is the house :nîts a child - nîts-is the child :ʔiyýi a person - ʔiyýs-is the person In the last example, there is a modifier in the noun phrase; the definite marker is suffixed to the modifier. The definite marker -is may optionally be changed to -iz when followed by a voiced consonant. :ʔéh-is the house :gášš-is the road :ʔámz-iz the woman :zúùb-iz the red one

Number

Nouns and noun phrases make a distinction between singular and plural. Singular is morphologically unmarked, whereas plural is marked by the suffix -af. That a head noun is plural can be inferred from the morpheme -id, which is suffixed to a modifier.

Pronouns

References

Relevant literature

*Seyoum, Mulugeta. "Gender Marking in Tsaratsa." ''Studies in Ethiopian Languages'' 7 (2018): 1-13. *Seyoum, Mulugeta
''A Grammar of Dime.''
Leiden University, doctoral dissertation. 2008.

External links

* Yilma, Aklilu and Ralph Siebert (2002)
"Sociolinguistic survey report of the Chara, Dime, Melo and Nayi languages of Ethiopia part 1."
SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-029. * Ralph Siebert (2002)
"Sociolinguistic survey report on the Dime language of Ethiopia."
SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-043 *

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 ...

information o
Dime
{{Omotic languages Languages of Ethiopia Aroid languages