The Afar language ( aa, Qafaraf, links=no; also known as ’Afar Af, Afaraf, Qafar af) is an

Afroasiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

language belonging to the

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...

branch. It is spoken by the

Afar people The Afar ( aa, Qafár), also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern co ...

inhabiting

Djibouti Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

Classification

Afar is classified within the

branch of the

family. It is further categorized in the Lowland East Cushitic sub-group, along with Saho and Somali. Its closest relative is the Saho language.

Geographic distribution

The Afar language is spoken as a mother tongue by the

, and the

Afar Region The Afar Region (; aa, Qafar Rakaakayak; am, አፋር ክልል), formerly known as Region 2, is a regional state in northeastern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Afar people. Its capital is the planned city of Semera, which lies on the pave ...

. According to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'', there are 1,379,200 total Afar speakers. Of these, 1,280,000 were recorded in the 2007 Ethiopian census, with 906,000 monolinguals registered in the 1994 census.

Official status

In Djibouti, Afar is a recognized national language. It is also one of the broadcasting languages of the

Radio Television of Djibouti Radio Television of Djibouti (RTD) ( ar, إذاعة وتلفزيون جيبوتي, french: Radiodiffusion télévision de Djibouti) is the national broadcaster of Djibouti. The station is based in Djibouti city and the only media outlet of the c ...

public network. In Eritrea, Afar is recognized as one of nine national languages which formally enjoy equal status although

Tigrinya (; also spelled Tigrigna) is an Ethio-Semitic language commonly spoken Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia's Tigray Region by the Tigrinya and Tigrayan peoples. It is also spoken by the global diaspora of these regions. History and literatur ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

are by far of greatest significance in official usage. There are daily broadcasts on the national radio and a translated version of the Eritrean constitution. In education, however, Afar speakers prefer Arabic – which many of them speak as a second language – as the language of instruction. In the Afar Region of Ethiopia, Afar is also recognized as an official working language. Since 2020, Afar is one of the five official working languages of Ethiopia.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of the Afar language in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets): Voiceless stop consonants which close syllables are released, e.g., .

Vowels and stress

:* ''short'' :** a :**e :**i :**o :**u :* ''long'' :**aa :**ee :**ii :**oo :**uu Sentence final vowels of affirmative verbs are aspirated (and stressed), e.g. = 'He did.' Sentence final vowels of negative verbs are not aspirated (nor stressed), e.g. = 'He did not do.' Sentence final vowels of interrogative verbs are lengthened (and stressed), e.g. = 'Did he do?' Otherwise, stress in word-final.

Phonotactics

Possible syllable shapes are V, VV, VC, VVC, CV, CVV and CVVC.

Syntax

As in most other Cushitic languages, the basic word order in Afar is

subject–object–verb Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...

Writing system

In Ethiopia, Afar used to be written with the Ge'ez script (Ethiopic script). Since around 1849, the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

has been used in other areas to transcribe the language. Additionally, Afar is also transcribed using the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...

. In the early 1970s, two Afar intellectuals and nationalists, Dimis and Redo, formalized the Afar alphabet. Known as ''Qafar Feera'', the orthography is based on the Latin script. Officials from the Institut des Langues de Djibouti, the Eritrean Ministry of Education, and the Ethiopian Afar Language Studies and Enrichment Center have since worked with Afar linguists, authors and community representatives to select a standard orthography for Afar from among the various existing writing systems used to transcribe the language.

Latin alphabet

Notes

Bibliography

* Loren F. Bliese. 1976. "Afar", ''The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia''. Ed. Lionel M. Bender. Ann Arbor, Michigan: African Studies Center, Michigan State University. Pages 133–164. * Loren F. Bliese. 1981. ''A generative grammar of Afar''. Summer Institute of Linguistics publications in linguistics vol. 65. Dallas:

Summer Institute of Linguistics SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...

and

The University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA or UT Arlington) is a public research university in Arlington, Texas. The university was founded in 1895 and was in the Texas A&M University System for several decades until joining the University of Te ...

. . * J. G. Colby. 1970. "Notes on the northern dialect of the Afar language", ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'' 8:1–8. * R. J. Hayward and Enid M. Parker. 1985. ''Afar-English-French dictionary with Grammatical Notes in English''. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. * Richard J. Hayward. 1998. "Qafar (West Cushitic)", ''Handbook of Morphology''. Ed. A. Spencer and A. Zwicky. Oxford: Blackwell. Pages 624–647. * Didier Morin. 1997. ''Poésie traditionnelle des Afars''. Langues et cultures africaines, 21 / SELAF vol. 363. Paris/Louvain: Peeters. * Enid M. Parker. 2006. ''English–Afar Dictionary''. Washington DC: Dunwoody Press. * Rainer M. Voigt. 1975. "Bibliographie des Saho–Afar", ''Africana Marburgensia'' 8:53–63.

External links

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 i ...

information o
QafarAfar language learning web site
(Much information about Afar, in English and French)

{{Authority control Afar people East Cushitic languages Languages of Djibouti Languages of Eritrea Languages of Ethiopia