Gumuz (also spelled Gumaz) is a

dialect cluster A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...

spoken along the border 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 ...

and

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 ...

. It has been tentatively classified within the

Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...

family. Most Ethiopian speakers live in Kamashi Zone and Metekel Zone of the

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 ...

, although a group of 1,000 reportedly live outside the town of

Welkite Welkite (also transliterated Wolkite; ) is a town and separate woreda in south-western Ethiopia. The second administrative center of the Central Ethiopia Regional State, and Gurage Zone . The town has a latitude and longitude of and an elevati ...

(Unseth 1989). The Sudanese speakers live in the area east of Er Roseires, around Famaka and Fazoglo on the

Blue Nile The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major Tributary, tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the wa ...

, extending north along the border. Dimmendaal et al. (2019) suspect that the poorly attested varieties spoken along the river constitute a distinct language, Kadallu. Gerrit Dimmendaal, Colleen Ahland & Angelika Jakobi (2019) Linguistic features and typologies in languages commonly referred to as 'Nilo-Saharan', ''Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics'', p. 6–7 An early record of this language is a wordlist from the Mount Guba area compiled in February 1883 by

Juan Maria Schuver Juan Maria Schuver (born Joannes Maria Schuver; 26 February 1852 – August 1883) was a Dutch explorer. The son of a wealthy merchant, as a young man Schuver travelled extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa. At ...

Varieties

Varieties are not all

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

. By that standard, there are two or three Gumuz languages. Grammatical forms are distinct between northern and southern Gumuz. Daats'iin, discovered in 2013, is clearly a distinct language, though closest to southern Gumuz. The poorly attested varieties in Sudan are likely a distinct language as well, Kadallu. (See

Bʼaga languages The Bʼaga languages, also known as Gumuz, form a small language family spoken along the border of Ethiopia and Sudan. They have been tentatively classified as closest to the Koman languages within the Nilo-Saharan languages, Nilo-Saharan langua ...

.) ''Ethnologue'' lists Guba, Wenbera, Sirba, Agalo, Yaso, Mandura, Dibate, and Metemma as Gumuz dialects, with Mandura, Dibate, and Metemma forming a dialect cluster. Ahland (2004)Ahland, Colleen Anne. 2004. ''Linguistic Variation Within Gumuz: A Study of the Relationship Between Historical Change and Intelligibility (Ethiopia, Sudan)''. MA thesis, University of Texas at Arlington. provides comparative lexical data for the Guba, Mandura, North Dibat'e, Wenbera, Sirba Abay, Agelo Meti, Yaso, and Metemma dialects.

Phonology

Gumuz has both

ejective consonants In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...

and

implosives Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in additio ...

. The implosive quality is being lost at the velar point of articulation in some dialects (Unseth 1989). There is a series of palatal consonants, including both ejective and implosive. In some dialects, e.g. Sirba, there is a labialized palatalized bilabial stop, as in the word for 'rat' (Unseth 1989).

Consonants

* The tap �mainly occurs in morpheme-internal positions, and not in word-initial position. It also occurs as an allophone of /ɗ/ in intervocalic and word-final positions. * A trill may occur from ideophones or as a result of loanwords from Amharic. * A velar implosive �tends to only exist in the Agelo Meti dialect. * A labialized bilabial plosive ʷtends to only exist in the Sirba Abay dialect. * A voiced fricative �may occur when /ɓ/ tends to weaken in word-final position in some dialects.

Both dialects

* The labio dental only occurs in rare distribution, and mainly occurs in intervocalic and word-initial positions. It is also possibly introduced via derivation from ideophones. * The palatal �only occurs word-internally in intervocalic environments, before a palatal consonant, or as an allophone of /n/ before a front vowel. * �ʷonly occurs in rare distribution, or when /ŋ/ occurs before a weakened short rounded vowel. * Other labialized consonants ʷ, ɡʷ, kʼʷ, χʷtend to occur as a result of velar or uvular consonants preceding weakened short rounded vowels that precede another vowel.

Vowels

* Short allophones of /i, e, a, o, u/ can be heard as �, ɛ, ə, ɔ, ʊ * A central close vowel �may occur in various positions after a shortened /u/ when labializing a velar or uvular consonant.

Tone

Tones are high and low, with

downstep Downstep is a phenomenon in tone languages in which if two syllables have the same tone (for example, both with a high tone or both with a low tone), the second syllable is lower in pitch than the first. Two main kinds of downstep can be distin ...

.Colleen Ahland, 2012. "A Grammar of Northern and Southern Gumuz", Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oregon.

Grammar

Word order is AVO, with marked nominative case, though there is AOV order in the north, probably from Amharic influence . In intransitive clauses, subjects in S–V order are unmarked, whereas those in V–S order are marked for nominative case.

Notes

References

* Ahland, Colleen Anne. A Grammar of Northern and Southern Gumuz. Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon. * Dimmendaal, Gerrit J., 2000. "Number marking and noun categorization in Nilo- Saharan languages". Anthrolopological Linguistics 42:214-261.

External links

Gumuz basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{Languages of Ethiopia Languages of Ethiopia Languages of Sudan Subject–verb–object languages Bʼaga languages