Ilit (Iiliit) is a divergent variety of Kunama that is

mutually unintelligible 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 ...

enough to be considered a distinct language. It is spoken by the

Kunama people The Kunama are an ethnic group native to Eritrea. They are one of the smallest ethnic communities in Eritrea, constituting only 4% of the population. Most of the estimated 260,000 Kunama live in the remote and isolated area between the Gash and ...

who straddle the western

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

n–

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 ...

n border.

References

Kunama languages Languages of Eritrea {{ns-lang-stub