Sebat Bet ("Seven houses") is an
Afroasiatic language
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 ...
spoken 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 ...
.
Overview
One of the
Gurage languages
The Gurage languages (Gurage: ጉራጌ), also known as Guragie, is a dialect-continuum language, which belong to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by the Gurage people, who inhabit the Gurage Zone within t ...
, Sebat Bet is divided into several dialects. The latter are spoken in the western
Gurage Region:
*
Chaha
Chaha or Cheha (in Chaha and Amharic: ቸሃ ''čehā'' or ''čexā'') is a Gurage language spoken in central Ethiopia, mainly within the Gurage Zone in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region. It is also spoken by Gurage settler ...
(Cheha) is spoken in
Cheha and is the best studied of these varieties
*
Ezha Ezha is one of the woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. This woreda is named after the sub-group of the Sebat Bet Gurage, the Ezha. Part of the Gurage Zone, Ezha is bordered on the south by Gumer, on the ...
(Eza, Izha) is spoken in
Ezhana Wolene Ezhana Wolene ("Ezha and Wolene") was one of the 77 woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. This woreda was named after two of the sub-groups of the Sebat Bet Gurage, the Ezha and the Wolene-Worriro. Part of ...
*
Muher is spoken in the mountains north of Cheha and Ezhana Wolene
*
Geta is spoken in
Geta
*
Gumer Gumer (Amharic: ጉመር) is one of the woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. This woreda is named after one of the sub-groups of the Sebat Bet Gurage, the Gumer. Part of the Gurage Zone, Gumer is bordere ...
(Gwemarra, Gʷəmarə), spoken in
Gumer Gumer (Amharic: ጉመር) is one of the woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. This woreda is named after one of the sub-groups of the Sebat Bet Gurage, the Gumer. Part of the Gurage Zone, Gumer is bordere ...
*
Inor (Enemor), spoken in
Enemorina Eaner Enemorina Eaner ("Enemor and Eaner") is one of the woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. This woreda is named in part after one of the sub-groups of the Sebat Bet Gurage, the Enemor, who are first mention ...
:*
Endegegn and the extinct
Mesmes language are sometimes considered subdialects of Inor.
Notes
Further reading
* Leslau, Wolf. 1997. "Chaha (Gurage) Phonology" in Kaye, Alan S. (ed.): Phonologies of Asia and Africa 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 373–397.
*Rose, Sharon. 2007. "Chaha (Gurage) Morphology" in Kaye, Alan D. (ed.): Morphologies of Africa and Asia 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 403–427.
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-R ...
information o
Chaha
Languages of Ethiopia
Outer Ethiopian Semitic languages
{{Semitic-lang-stub