Gedeo is a
Highland East Cushitic
Highland East Cushitic, or Sidamic, is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in south-central Ethiopia. They are often grouped with Lowland East Cushitic, Dullay, and Yaaku as ''East Cushitic'', but that group is not well defined ...
language of the
Afro-Asiatic family spoken in south central
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 ...
. Alternate names for the language include Derasa, Deresa, Darassa, Geddeo, Derasanya, Darasa. It is spoken by the
Gedeo people
The Gedeo are an ethnic group in southern Ethiopia. The Gedeo Zone in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR) is named for this people. They speak the Gedeo language, which is one of the Cushitic languages.
Overview
Acc ...
, who live in the highland area, southwest of
Dila and east of
Lake Abaya.
[Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.]
The languages has SOV word order. Verbs are marked for person, number, and gender of subject. Verbs are marked for voice: active, causative, middle, and passive.
The New Testament was published in the Gedeo language in 1986, using the
Ethiopian syllabary.
Notes
References
* Wedekind, Klaus. 1980. "Sidamo, Gedeo (Derasa), Burji: Phonological differences and likenesses," ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'' 14: 131-76.
* Wedekind, Klaus. 1985. "Gedeo (Derasa) verb morphology and morphophonemics," ''The verb morphophonemics of five highland east Cushitic languages, including Burji''. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 2. Cologne: Institut für Afrikanistik. Pages 82–109.
External links
Introduction to Gedeo dictionary(archived)
Gedeo dictionary(archived)
East Cushitic languages
Languages of Ethiopia
{{AfroAsiatic-lang-stub