Dirasha (also known as Ghidole, Diraasha, Dirayta, Gidole, Gardulla, Dhirasha) is a member of 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 of the

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 ...

family. It is spoken in the

Omo Omo or OMO may refer to: Geography Ethiopia * Omo River (Ethiopia), in southern Ethiopia is the largest Ethiopian river outside the Nile Basin and namesake for all the topics below * Omo Nada, one of the woredas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia ...

region 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 ...

, in the hills west of

Lake Chamo Lake Chamo ( Amharic: ቻሞ ሐይቅ) is a lake in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of southern Ethiopia. Located in the Main Ethiopian Rift, it is at an elevation of 1,110 meters. The Chamo lake is just to the south of ...

, around the town of

Gidole Gidole is a town in southern Ethiopia, and is the administrative center of the Dirashe special woreda. Located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, it sits at a latitude and longitude of with an elevation ranging from 2045 ...

. A number of speakers also use Oromo or Konso. According to Wondwosen, the "Dirasha" is the name of the people, and the name of the language is given variously as "Dirashitata, Dirayta and Diraytata" (2006:3,4). The language has a three

ejective consonant 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 ...

phonemes and two

implosive consonant Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. R ...

phonemes, fitting the pattern of the

Ethiopian Language Area The Ethiopian language area is a hypothesized linguistic area that was first proposed by Charles A. Ferguson (1970, 1976), who posited a number of phonological and morphosyntactic features that were found widely across Ethiopia and Eritrea, incl ...

. It has two tones and five vowels. Duration (or

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...

) is distinctive for both consonants and vowels (Wondwosen 2006:9,10).

Phonology

Phonetic Inventory: Consonant IPA Symbols

Dirayta transcription utilizes symbols that differ from those of the traditional IPA chart. Each ejective may be written two ways. When /n/ and /ʔ/ occur as /nʔ/, they contract to form ŋ. /n/ and /ʔ/ must occur in that sequence, with no intervening vowels or consonants.

Phonetic Inventory: Vowel IPA Symbols

Low and High Tones

-Dirayta is a 2-tone language. -Low Tone: Absence of accentual markings -High Tone: Represented by acute accent diacritic above vowel (í, é, á, ú, ó,

ɔ́ Open o or Turned c ( majuscule: Ɔ, minuscule: ɔ) is a letter of the extended Latin alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it represents the open-mid back rounded vowel. It is used in the orthographies of many African languages us ...

) -Mandatory for monosyllabic CVC and disyllabic CVC/CVVC words -For disyllabic words, only one syllable may contain high tone. -High tone is (mostly) assigned to the first vowel within the initial syllable. However, high tone may be assigned to the first vowel within the ultimate syllable. -For trisyllabic words, high tone is (mostly) assigned to the ultimate syllable. However, high tone may be assigned to BOTH initial and ultimate syllables.

References

*Wondwosen Tesfaye Abire. 2006
''Aspects of Diraytata Morphology and Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Grammar Approach.''
University of Trondheim, doctoral thesis.

External links

*Klaus Wedekind
"Sociolinguistic Survey Report of the Languages of the Gawwada (Dullay), Diraasha (Gidole), Muusiye (Bussa) Areas"
SIL Electronic Survey Reports: SILESR 2002-065 (contains a word-list of Dirasha, with 320 entries) East Cushitic languages Languages of Ethiopia {{Ethiopia-stub