Kambaata 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, part of the larger
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 s ...
family and spoken by the
Kambaata people
Kambaata people (Amharic: ከምባታ) are a Cushitic ethnic group that inhabit the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. They speak the Kambaata language, It was a province of Ethiopia beginning in the early 15th ...
. Dialects are Tembaro, Alaba, and K'abeena The language has many verbal affixes. When these are affixed to verbal roots, there are a large amount of
morphophonemic
Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes ...
changes.
[Sim 1985, 1988.] The language has subject–object–verb order. The phonemes of Kambaata include five vowels (which are distinctively long or short), a set of
ejective
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 ...
s, a retroflexed
implosive
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. Ro ...
, and glottal stop.
The New Testament and some parts of the Old Testament have been translated into the Kambaata language. At first, they were published in the Ethiopian syllabary (New Testament in 1992), but later on, they were republished in Latin letters, in conformity with new policies and practices.
Notes
References
*ALAMU BANTA ATAARA, Kookaata. Kambaatissa–Amaarsa–Ingiliizissa Laaga Doonnuta. ከምባትሳ–ኣማርኛ–እንግሊዝኛ መዝገበ ቃላት. ''Kambatissa–Amharic–English Dictionary'' (Addis Abäba: Bǝrhanǝnna sälam mattämiya dǝrǝǧǧǝt, 2009 EC = 2016/2017 CE); 1165 pp.
*Korhonen, Elsa, Mirja Saksa, and Ronald J. Sim. 1986. "A dialect study of Kambaata-Hadiyya (Ethiopia)
art 1" ''Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere'' 5: 5-41.
*Korhonen, Elsa, Mirja Saksa, and Ronald J. Sim. 1986. "A dialect study of Kambaata-Hadiyya (Ethiopia), part 2: Appendices." ''Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere'' 6: 71-121.
* Sim, Margaret G. 1985. "Kambaata Verb Morphophonemics," ''The morphophonemics of five Highland East Cushitic languages including Burji''. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 2. Köln: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln. Pages 44–63.
* Sim, Margaret. 1988. "Palatalization and gemination in the Kambaata verb." ''Journal of Afroasiatic Languages'' 1.58-65.
* Treis, Yvonne. 2008. ''A Grammar of Kambaata - Part I: Phonology, Nominal Morphology and Non-verbal Predication''. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
External links
* Treis, Yvonne. 2006
"Form and Function of Case Marking in Kambaata."
Languages of Ethiopia
East Cushitic languages
{{AfroAsiatic-lang-stub