Chara (alternatively Ciara or C’ara) is an
Afro-Asiatic
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 of the
North Omotic
The North Omotic (Nomotic) or Ta-Ne Omotic languages, belong to the Omotic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family and are spoken in Ethiopia.
Dizoid is left out in later classifications, but included in earlier ones.
A relatively comprehensive com ...
variety spoken in the
of
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 ...
by 13,000 people.
Status
Chara is geographically situated to the southeast of
Nayi, west of
Kullo The Dawro are a people of southern Ethiopia, also known as the Omete. They speak the Dawragna language.
During the nineteenth century, the Dawro lived in an independent state known as the Kingdom of Dawro. In 2000, the Dawro Zone was split off fro ...
, northeast of
Mesketo, and northwest of
Gofa.
Chara speakers live in the
, in the
Debub Omo Zone
South Omo Zone (or Debub Omo Zone) is a List of zones of Ethiopia, zone in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR). Debub Omo is bordered on the south by Kenya, on the southwest by the South Sudan, on the west by ...
, on both sides of the
Omo river
The Omo River (also called Omo-Bottego) in southern Ethiopia is the largest Ethiopian river outside the Nile Basin. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia, and it empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Kenya. The ...
.
Chara speakers are scattered in three villages in
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 ...
:
Geba a meša,
Buna Anta, and
Kumba
Kumba is a metropolitan city in the Meme department, Southwest Region, Western Cameroon, referred as "K-town" in local slang. Kumba is the most developed and largest city in the Meme Department and has attracted people from the local villag ...
.
Native speakers may also speak
Melo,
Wolaytta (54% lexical similarity with Chara) to the east, and
Kafa to the west.
Phonology
Consonants
and
are in free variation.
/ɗ/ only occurs in the word /jalɗa~jaltʼa/ 'crooked'.
Yilma (2002) found /ɓ/ to occur five times in around 550 lexical items.
He also found /ʑ/ occurring in two, both in the sequence /iʑa/.
Occurrence of /ɗ/ and /pʼ/ may be governed by dialectal variation.
Vowels
/a/ is realized as
in unstressed word-medial syllables.
Length is minimally contrastive.
Minimal pairs include /mola/ 'fish', /moːla/ 'egg'; /masa/ 'to wash', /maːsa/ 'leopard'; /buna/ 'flower', /buːna/ 'coffee'.
Suprasegmentals
Chara has phonemic stress.
Examples: /ˈbakʼa/ 'to slap', /baˈkʼa/ 'empty'; /ˈwoja/ 'to come', /woˈja/ 'wolf'.
Morphophonemics
Morpheme-initial nasals assimilate
point of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
to that of the preceding consonant, usually found when verbs are suffixed with the singular imperative morpheme /-na/, e.g. /dub-na/ 'to hit.imp' →
ubma'hit!'.
Grammar
Morphology
Chara generally uses noun case suffixes and
postpositions
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
.
Nouns are inflected for gender, number, definiteness, case, and possession.
These are all suffixes, except for the possessive.
Gender pairs are usually lexical, except for a few with /-i/ in the masculine and /-a/ in the feminine.
Examples:
:/mansa/ 'ox', /mija/ 'cow'
:/izi/ 'he', /iza/ 'she'
Nouns and adjectives inflect for plural with the suffix /-eːndi/.
Examples:
:/ina/ 'mother', /ineːndi/ 'mothers'
:/dala/ 'while (sg.)', /daleːndi/ 'white (pl.)'
Definiteness in nouns is marked with the suffix /-naːzi/ (as an independent word meaning 'the male/man') for masculines and /-ena/ for feminines.
Adjectives take /-bi/ in the masculine and /-ena/ in the feminine.
Examples:
:/mansa/ 'ox', /mansanaːzi/ 'the ox'
:/mija/ 'cow', /mijena/ 'the cow/
:/karta/ 'black', /kartabi/ 'the black (m.)', /kartena/ 'the black (f.)'
Nouns and adjectives may be marked for
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
,
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
,
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
,
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
,
ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. T ...
,
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
, or
vocative case
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and num ...
.
The nominative suffix is /-i/, accusative /-(i)s/, dative /-(i)ri/, genitive /-e/, ablative /-kaj/, instrumental /-ne/, and vocative /-o/.
Bound possessive pronouns: /ta-mija/ 'my cow', /ne-mija/ 'your cow', /iza-mija/ 'his cow'.
Syntax
Chara is a
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 ...
language.
Adjectives end in /-a/ like nouns, and inflect for number, definiteness, plurality, and case.
In noun phrases adjectives precede their nouns, and are not inflected.
Examples
Notes
References
*
*Survey of Chara, Dime, Melo and Nayi, part 1. Yilma, Aklilu; Siebert, Ralph. 1995. S.L.L.E. linguistic reports 25: 2-8. oai:sil.org:36294
*
*
External links
Resources in and about the Chara languageChara basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chara Language
North Omotic languages
Languages of Ethiopia