Ganza, also known as Ganzo or Koma, is an

Omotic 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. T ...

language of the

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 ...

family spoken in the

Al Kurumik District Al Kurumik is a district of Blue Nile state, Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to th ...

of the

Blue Nile (state) Blue Nile State ( ') is one of the eighteen States of Sudan, states of the Republic of the Sudan. It was established by presidential decree nº 3 in 1992 and it is named after the Blue Nile River. The region is host to around forty different eth ...

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

and in the western

Benishangul-Gumuz region Benishangul-Gumuz () is a regional state in northwestern 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 Er ...

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 ...

, specifically in the village districts of Penishuba and Yabeldigis. It also goes by the names Ganzo, Gwami, Koma, and Koma-Ganza.

Phonology

Ganza does not utilize consonant length phonemically. Although

vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual length (phonetics), duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many ...

is typically contrastive in

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 ...

, Ganza does not have a clear contrast between long and short vowel phonemes. Instead, Ganza has predictable utterance-final vowel lengthening and a set of monosyllabic words with double vowels.

References

*Smolders, Joshua. 2015. ''A Wordlist of Ganza''. Addis Ababa: SIL Ethiopia

Notes

External links

Link to ELAR documentation of Ganza and Ganza verb mophology
Languages of Ethiopia Omotic languages Mao languages {{AfroAsiatic-lang-stub