The Kunama language has been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family, though it is distantly related to the other languages, if at all. Kunama 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 2% of the population. Most of the estimated 260,000 Kunama live in the remote and isolated area between the Gash an ...

of the

Gash-Barka Region Gash-Barka ( ti, ጋሽ-ባርካ, it, Regione di Gasc-Barca) is an administrative region of Eritrea. It is situated in the south-west of the country, bordering the Anseba region to the north, and the Maekel (Central) and Debub (Southern) reg ...

in western

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 just across the

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 Er ...

n border. The language has several dialects including: Barka, Marda, Aimara, Odasa, Tika, Lakatakura, Sokodasa, Takazze-Selit and Tigray. Ilit and Bitama are not mutually intelligible and so may be considered distinct languages. There have been some use of the Kunama language in publications. "The first Bible translation product in Kunama was the Gospel of Mark prepared by Andersson and published in 1906."

References

Relevant literature

*Bender, M. Lionel. 1996. Kunama. Languages of the World/Materials 59. München: Lincom Europa. *Bender, Marvin Lionel. 2001. English-Kunama lexicon. ''Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere'' 65: 201-253. *Idris, Nikodimos.1987. ''The Kunama and their language''. Addis Ababa University BA thesis *Thompson, E. D. 1983. "Kunama: phonology and noun phrase" in Bender, M. L. (ed.): ''Nilo-Saharan Language Studies''. East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University. pp. 280–322. *Thompson, E. David. 1989. "Kunama Verb Phrase" in Bender, M. Lionel (ed.): ''Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics''. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. pp. 305–346. *Tucker, A. N. and Bryan, M. A. 1966. "Kunama" in Linguistic Analyses: the Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. London: Oxford University Press.

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 ...

information o
Kunama
Languages of Eritrea Languages of Ethiopia Kunama languages {{Ethiopia-stub

See also

References

Relevant literature

External links