Qwara, or Qwareña (called "Falasha" (Hwarasa) in some older sources), was one of two
Agaw dialects, spoken by a subgroup of the
Beta Israel
Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, is a Jewish group originating from the territory of the Amhara Region, Amhara and Tigray Region, Tigray regions in northern Ethiopia, where they are spread out across more than 500 small villages over a wide ter ...
(
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
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 ...
) of
Qwara Province
Qwara (Amharic: ቋራ), also spelled Quara, was a province in now Amhara Region, Ethiopia, located between Lake Tana and the frontier inside present-day Sudan, and stretching from Agawmeder in the south as far north as Metemma, and as far west ...
. It is a dialect of
Qimant. It is nearly extinct. Several early Falashan manuscripts, using the
Ge'ez script, exist; in more recent times, the language has been recorded by several linguists and travellers, starting with Flad in 1866.
Qwareña was on the decline in the early 20th century because it was being replaced by
Amharic
Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
. During
Operation Solomon
Operation Solomon (, Mivtza Shlomo) was a covert Israeli military operation from May 24 to 25, 1991, to airlift Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Non-stop flights of 35 Israeli aircraft, including Israeli Air Force C-130s and El Al Boeing 747s, tran ...
, most of its remaining speakers were airlifted to
Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
, where it continues to lose ground to
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...
.
See also
*
Kayla dialect
Kayliñña ( Tigrinya and ) is one of two Agaw languages formerly spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews). It is a transitional dialect between Qimant and Xamtanga. The name ''Kayla'' () is sometimes also used as a cover term ...
References
Further reading
#
#Flad, J. M. (1866). A Short Description of the Falasha and Kamants in Abyssinia: Together with an Outline of the Elements and a Vocabulary of the Falasha Language. Mission Press.
#Freeburg, E. (2013). The Cost of Revival: the Role of Hebrew in Jewish Language Endangerment (Doctoral dissertation, Yale University).
External links
Endangered Languages Profile for HwarasaSIL – Sociolinguist report of the Kemant (Qimant) Language of EthiopiaQwara language map
Jewish languages
Jews and Judaism in Ethiopia
Languages of Ethiopia
Central Cushitic languages
Endangered Afroasiatic languages
Endangered languages of Africa
{{Jewish-hist-stub