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Karo (also Cherre, Kere, Kerre) is a South
Karo (also Cherre, Kere, Kerre) is a South Omotic
The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have co ...
language spoken in the Debub (South) Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region
The Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (often abbreviated as SNNPR; am, የደቡብ ብሔር ብሔረሰቦችና ሕዝቦች ክልል, Yädäbub Bḥer Bḥeräsäbočna Hzboč Kllə) is a regional state in southwestern ...
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 ...
. Karo is described as being closely related to its neighbor, Hamer-Banna, with a lexical similarity of 81%, and is considered a dialect of Hamer by Blench (2006), but as a separate language belonging to the ''Hamer-Karo'' subfamily in Glottolog
''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute f ...
. The Karo people, who live close to the lower Omo River, use colorful bodywork, complex headdresses and body scars to express beauty and importance within the community. 2,400 speakers are using the Karo language.
Basic vocabulary
In percentages of basic vocabulary scored by 14Omotic
The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have co ...
languages against 13 others, Karo scored 12 in Male, 9 in Chara, 12 in Basketo, 12 in Wolaytta, 14 in Kullo, 10 in Dace, 14 in Dorze, 14 in Oyda, 5 in Kacama, 10 in Koyra, 10 in Gidicho, 14 in Zayse, 14 in Zergulla. Unlike the strongest contributors to pairs of languages sharing unitary forms language-wise such as Inyangatom, Central Koma and Langa, Disoha, and Ingassana, Karo contributed none.
References