Kunama Language
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Kunama Language
The Kunama language has been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family, though it is distantly related to the other languages, if at all. Kunama is spoken by the Kunama people of the Gash-Barka Region in western Eritrea and just across the Ethiopian border. The language has several dialects including: Barka, Marda, Aimara, Odasa, Tika, Lakatakura, Sokodasa, Takazze-Selit and Tigray. Ilit and Bitama are not mutually intelligible and so may be considered distinct languages. There have been some use of the Kunama language in publications. "The first Bible translation product in Kunama was the Gospel of Mark prepared by Andersson and published in 1906." See also * Kunama word list (Wiktionary) References Relevant literature *Bender, M. Lionel. 1996. Kunama. Languages of the World/Materials 59. München: Lincom Europa. *Bender, Marvin Lionel. 2001. English-Kunama lexicon. ''Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere'' 65: 201-253. *Idris, Nikodimos.1987. ''The Kunama and their ...
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Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the south, Sudan in the west, and Djibouti in the southeast. The northeastern and eastern parts of Eritrea have an extensive coastline along the Red Sea. The nation has a total area of approximately , and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands. Human remains found in Eritrea have been dated to 1 million years old and anthropological research indicates that the area may contain significant records related to the evolution of humans. Contemporary Eritrea is a multi-ethnic country with nine recognised ethnic groups. Nine different languages are spoken by the nine recognised ethnic groups, the most widely spoken language being Tigrinya, the others being Tigre, Saho, Kunama, Nara, Afar, Beja, Bilen and Ar ...
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Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east and northeast, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia has a total area of . As of 2022, it is home to around 113.5 million inhabitants, making it the 13th-most populous country in the world and the 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates. Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out to the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithic period. Southwestern Ethiopia has been proposed as a possible homeland of the Afroasiatic langua ...
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Kunama Languages
The Kunama languages are a family of languages traditionally considered dialects of a single language, spoken in western Eritrea and across the border in Ethiopia. They are included as a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T .... The languages are Kunama proper and Ilit. References *Blench, RogerNilo-Saharan languages list Language families Languages of Eritrea {{ns-lang-stub ...
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Nilo-Saharan Languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari River, Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. The languages extend through 17 nations in the northern half of Africa: from Algeria to Benin in the west; from Libya to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the centre; and from Egypt to Tanzania in the east. As indicated by its hyphenated name, Nilo-Saharan is a family of the African interior, including the greater Nile Basin and the Central Sahara Desert. Eight of its proposed constituent divisions (excluding Kunama languages, Kunama, Kuliak, and Songhai languages, Songhay) are found in the modern countries of Sudan and South Sudan, through which the Nile River flows. In his book ''The Languages of Africa'' (1963), Joseph Greenberg named the group and argued it was a genetic (linguistics), genetic family. It contains the ...
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Kunama People
The Kunama are an ethnic group native to Eritrea. They are one of the smallest ethnic communities in Eritrea, constituting only 2% of the population. Most of the estimated 260,000 Kunama live in the remote and isolated area between the Gash and Setit rivers near the border with Ethiopia. The Kunama people have ancient ancestry in the land of Eritrea. In the 2007 Ethiopian census, however, the number of Kunama in Tigray has dropped to 2,976 as the remaining 2,000 or so members of this ethnic group have migrated into the other regions of Ethiopia. History The earliest written mention of the Kunama comes from Ya'qubi, writing around 872 AD. His account is based on travelers' reports. He noted the 'Cunama' tribe living on the eastern borders of Alodia. They were later mentioned by the 10th century Arab geographer Ibn Hawqal. He states they lived in the Barka valley, and fought with bows, poisoned arrows and spears, but did not use shields. He also mentions that the Kunama worship ...
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Gash-Barka Region
Gash-Barka ( ti, ጋሽ-ባርካ, it, Regione di Gasc-Barca) is an administrative region of Eritrea. It is situated in the south-west of the country, bordering the Anseba region to the north, and the Maekel (Central) and Debub (Southern) regions to the east; the country of Sudan lies to the west and Ethiopia to the south. The capital of Gash-Barka is Barentu. Other towns include Agordat (the former capital), Molki, Sebderat and Teseney. As of 2005, the region had a population of 708,800 compared to a population of 625,100 in 2001. The net growth rate was 11.81 per cent. The total area of the province was 33,200 km2 and the density was 21.35 persons per km2., making up roughly one-third of Eritrea. The region is dubbed as the "breadbasket" of the country as it is rich in agriculture. The region is also rich in marble, and other important minerals, including gold. In Ougaro, there are some old mineshafts and machinery from the days when the Italians mined gold there. Ge ...
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Ilit Language
Ilit (Iiliit) is a divergent variety of Kunama that is mutually unintelligible enough to be considered a distinct language. It is spoken by the Kunama people who straddle the western Eritrean–Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...n border. References Kunama languages Languages of Eritrea {{ns-lang-stub ...
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Bitama Language
Ilit (Iiliit) is a divergent variety of Kunama that is mutually unintelligible enough to be considered a distinct language. It is spoken by the Kunama people who straddle the western Eritrean–Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...n border. References Kunama languages Languages of Eritrea {{ns-lang-stub ...
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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-ROM in 2005, and was released as the second edition on the Internet in April 2008. It is maintained by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and by the Max Planck Digital Library. The editors are Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil and Bernard Comrie. The atlas provides information on the location, linguistic affiliation and basic typological features of a great number of the world's languages. It interacts with OpenStreetMap maps. The information of the atlas is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. It is part of the Cross-Linguistic Linked Data project hosted by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. See also *Intercontinental Dictionary Series Referen ...
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Languages Of Eritrea
The main languages spoken in Eritrea are Tigrinya, Tigre, Kunama, Bilen, Nara, Saho, Afar, Beja. Tigrinya, Arabic, English language and historically Italian language serve as working languages. Tigrinya is the most widely spoken language in the country with 2,540,000 total native speakers of a population of 5,254,000 in 2006. The remaining residents primarily speak other languages from the Afroasiatic family, Nilo-Saharan languages or Indo-European languages. Ethno-linguistic demographics According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the Neolithic period from the family's proposed urheimat ("original homeland") in the Nile Valley, or the Near East. Other scholars propose that the Afro-Asiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, with its speakers subsequently dispersing from there. Eritrea's population now comprises nine ethnic groups, most of whom speak languages from the Semitic and Cushitic branches of the Afro-Asiati ...
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