Omo–Tana Languages
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Omo–Tana Languages
The Omo–Tana languages are a branch of the Cushitic family and are spoken in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya. The largest member is Somali. There is some debate as to whether the Omo–Tana languages form a single group, or whether they are individual branches of Lowland East Cushitic. Blench (2006) restricts the name to the Western Omo–Tana languages, and calls the others Macro-Somali. Internal classification Mauro Tosco (2012)Tosco, Mauro (2012). The Unity and Diversity of Somali Dialectal Variants. In: Nathan Oyori Ogechi, Jane A. Ngala Oduor and Peter Iribemwangi (eds.), The Harmonization and Standardization of Kenyan Languages. Orthography and other aspects. Cape Town: The Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS): 2012: 263–280. proposes the following internal classification of the Omo-Tana languages. Tosco considers Omo-Tama to consist of a ''Western'' branch and an ''Eastern'' ("Somaloid") branch, which is a dialect chain of various Somali langu ...
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Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia covers a land area of . , it has around 128 million inhabitants, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, thirteenth-most populous country in the world, the List of African countries by population, second-most populous in Africa after Nigeria, and the most populous landlocked country on Earth. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African Plate, African and Somali Plate, Somali tectonic plates. Early modern human, Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out for the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithi ...
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Rendille–Boni Languages
The Rendille–Boni languages is a proposed subgroup of the Macro-Somali languages, belonging to the Cushitic family. The languages are spoken in Kenya.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. The hypothesis has been by now rejected, in favor of grouping Aweer as a member of the Somali languages, closely related to Garre The Garre (also Gurreh, Karre, or Binukaaf, Somali: ''Reer Garre'', Arabic: بنو كاف, romanized: ''Banī kāf'') are a prominent Somali clan that traces its lineage back to Samaale, who is believed to have originated from the Arabian P .... Notes Languages of Kenya East Cushitic languages {{Kenya-stub ...
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Ashraf Dialect
Ashraf () is a speech variety of Somali spoken in the Marka district of the Lower Shebelle region and Banaadir region of southern Somalia. Classification According to Blench (2006) there are two sub-dialects: Shingaani and Lower Shebelle. As noted in recent work on the speech variety, Green & Jones (2016):"''What we hope to have illustrated in this talk is that while Marka (Af Ashraaf) may be similar in certain ways to both Northern Somali and Maay, it nonetheless boasts a number of unique properties, particularly in its morphology, that we believe merit its treatment not as a Somali or Maay dialect, but as a language variety of its own''"A similar level of skepticism towards the labelling of other Omo-Tana languages in Somalia (such as Maay, Dabarre, Jiddu) is expressed in Tosco (2012): The Unity and Diversity of Somali Dialectal Variants. In: Nathan Oyori Ogechi, Jane A. Ngala Oduor and Peter Iribemwangi (eds.), The Harmonization and Standardization of Kenyan Languages. ...
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Dabarre Language
Dabarre (also known as Af-Dabarre) is a Somali language spoken by the Dabarre and Ciroole, both sub-clans of the Digil clan family of Somalis inhabiting southwestern Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th .... It has an estimated 34,000 speakers. Dialects include Dabarre and Iroole (''Af-Iroole''). References Omo–Tana languages Languages of Somalia {{Somalia-stub ...
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Tunni Language
Tunni (also known as Af-Tunni) is a Somali language spoken by the Tunni who reside in the Lower Shebelle, Middle Juba, Lower Juba and part of Bay regions in southern Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th .... The language is typically classified among the Digil group of Somali languages. Tunni is distinct from Somali, with a different phonology and sentence structure.Tosco, Mauro (1997), Af Tunni: Grammar, texts, and glossary of a southern Somali dialect, Rüdiger Köppe, Notes References Omo–Tana languages Languages of Somalia {{Somalia-stub ...
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Aweer Language
Aweer (''Aweera''), also known as Boni (''Bon, Bonta''), is a Cushitic language of Eastern Kenya. The Aweer people, known by the arguably derogatory exonym ''Boni'', are historically a hunter-gatherer people, traditionally subsisting on hunting, gathering, and collecting honey. Their ancestral lands range along the Kenyan coast from the Lamu and Ijara Districts into Southern Somalia's Badaade District. According to ''Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...'', there are around 8,000 speakers of Aweer. Aweer has similarities with the Garre language, however, its speakers are distinct in culture and appearance from Garre speakers. Historical situation There are suggestions that the Aweer speech community are remnants of the early hunter-gatherer inhabit ...
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Garre Language
Garre (also known as Af-Garre) is a Somali languages, Somali language spoken by the Garre who reside in southern Somalia, Ethiopia and northern Kenya. It belongs to the family's Cushitic languages, Cushitic branch, and had an estimated 50,000 speakers in Somalia in 1992, 57,500 in 2006 and 86,000 in 2020. The total number of speakers in Kenya and Somalia was estimated at 685,600 in 2019. Garre is in the Rahanweyn, Digil classification of Somali dialects. Garre language is readily intelligible to Digil speakers, as it has some affinity with Maay Maay, Af-Maay and Boon language, Af-Boon. Classification The Garre language is in the Rahanweyn, Digil classification of Somali dialects, other Digil Somali dialects are; Tunni language, Af-Tunni, Dabarre language, Af Dabarre and Jiiddu language, Af-Jiddu. The Digil dialects are the most heterogenous dialect group of all the Somali Democratic Republic and it is indeed questionable, whether they form a single group, or whether each singl ...
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Rendille Language
Rendille (also known as Rendile, Randile) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Rendille people inhabiting northern Kenya. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch. The Ariaal sub-group of the Rendille, who are of mixed Nilotic and Cushitic descent, speak the Nilo-Saharan Samburu language Samburu is a Maa language dialect spoken by Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya ... of the Samburu Nilotes, near whom they live. Phonology Consonants * /tɕ/ can be heard as by some speakers. * Some speakers always pronounce /x/ as a uvular stop * can be heard as a free variant of /ħ/, or when /ħ/ is heard in intervocalic position. * Voiced sounds become voiceless when in word-final position. * /b/ can be pronounced as when preceding /ħ/, or as a fricative in intervocalic position. * /r/ can also freely be ...
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Yaaku Language
Yaaku (also known as Mukogodo, Mogogodo, Mukoquodo, Siegu, Yaakua, Ndorobo) is a moribund Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language of the Cushitic languages, Cushitic branch, spoken in Kenya. Speakers are all older adults. The classification of Yaaku within Cushitic is disputed, though it is usually placed somewhere within East Cushitic. It is lexicostatistically distinct, having been influenced by Maasai language, Maasai and perhaps also by an unknown Substrate language, substratum, but it shows closest resemblance with the Western Omo–Tana languages, Arboroid languages. Bender (2020) includes it as a member of Arboroid.Bender, M. Lionel. (2020). Cushitic Lexicon and Phonology. ed. Grover Hudson. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik / Research in African Studies, 28). Berlin: Peter Lang. Language situation The Yaaku people are former hunter-gatherers and bee-keeping, bee-keepers. They adopted the pastoralism, pastoralist culture of the Maasai people, Maasai in the first half of th ...
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El Molo Language
El Molo is a moribund or extinct language belonging to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. It was spoken by the El Molo people on the southeastern shore of Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya. Alternate names to El Molo are Dehes, Elmolo, Fura-Pawa, and Ldes. It was thought to be extinct in the middle part of the 20th century, but a few speakers were found in the later 20th century. Most of the El Molo population have shifted to the neighboring Samburu language, and there are only semispeakers left. El Molo also has no known dialects but it is similar to Daasanach. Oral tradition sees the El Molo people as an offshoot of the Arbore people in South Ethiopia. This seems to be confirmed by El Molo's linguistic proximity to the Arbore language. Classification El Molo belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. The Cushitic languages are one of the largest language families of East Africa, spoken in an area stretching from North-East Sudan at the ...
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Arbore Language
Arbore is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Arbore people in southern Ethiopia in a few settlements of Hamer woreda near Lake Chew Bahir. Classification That the Arbore language belongs within a "Macro-Somali" (now called Omo-Tana) group was first recognized by Sasse (1974). Other members of this group are Daasanach, Bayso, Rendille, Boni and the various Somali dialects. Omo-Tana itself is a major division of Lowland East Cushitic. Arbore's nearest relatives (jointly classified as Western Omo-Tana) are Daasanach and especially the probably extinct Kenyan language of the Elmolo fishermen of Lake Turkana. The sub-grouping is justified in terms of uniquely shared lexicon and certain common grammatical innovations, amongst which the generalizations of the absolute forms of the 1st person singular and 2nd person singular personal pronouns to subject function, thereby replacing the earlier Proto-Lowland East Cushitic forms, e.g. 2nd personal pronouns, e.g., 2nd person s ...
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Daasanach Language
Daasanach (also known as Dasenech, Daasanech, Dathanaik, Dathanaic, Dathanik, Dhaasanac, Gheleba, Geleba, Geleb, Gelebinya, Gallab, Galuba, Gelab, Gelubba, Dama, Marille, Merile, Merille, Morille, Reshiat, Russia) is a Cushitic language spoken by the Daasanach in Ethiopia, South Sudan and Kenya whose homeland is along the Lower Omo River and on the shores of Lake Turkana.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Phonology Consonants * A glottal may also occur in word-initial position, when preceding vowels in various positions * /ð/ may freely alternate with an alveolar among speakers. * /w/ may be heard as a fricative when before front vowels. * Sounds /t̪, k/ can be heard as spiranted , ɣin intervocalic positions. /k/ can also be heard as uvular when in between back vowel sounds. * /k/ can be heard as a uvular when before back vowel sounds. * /ɗ̠/ in intervocalic po ...
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