The Aroid or Ari-Banna (sometimes South Omotic or Somotic) languages possibly belong to the
Afro-Asiatic
The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...
family and are spoken in
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, Ken ...
.
Languages
There are five Aroid languages:
* Aroid languages
** ''Aari-Gayil languages''
***
Aari
***
Gayil
** ''Hamer-Karo languages''
***
Hamer-Banna
***
Karo (Ethiopia)
**
Dime
External classification
The classification of South Omotic (also called Aroid) is highly disputed and it may be a separate language family. Karo is sometimes considered as a dialect of Hamer, but considered as a separate language by Glottolog which groups both in a ''Hamer-Karo'' subfamily.
Zaborski (1986) and Lamberti (1993) consider South Omotic to be a separate branch of
Cushitic
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2 ...
, renaming it as ''West Cushitic''.
Bender (2000, 2003) notes that South Omotic is in fact quite divergent from other
Afroasiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...
, and suggests that it may in fact have connections with
Nilo-Saharan
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...
, such as
Surmic and
Nilotic
The Nilotic peoples are peoples Indigenous people of Africa, indigenous to South Sudan and the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambela Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uga ...
.
Enrico Cerulli had proposed that Aroid languages might be a part of
Nilotic
The Nilotic peoples are peoples Indigenous people of Africa, indigenous to South Sudan and the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambela Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uga ...
. Citing lexical similarities with
Surmic and other non-
Nilotic
The Nilotic peoples are peoples Indigenous people of Africa, indigenous to South Sudan and the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambela Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uga ...
Nilo-Saharan languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari River, Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the tw ...
, Yigezu (2013)
[Yigezu, Moges. 2013. ''Is Aroid Nilo-Saharan or Afro-Asiatic? Some evidences from phonological, lexical and morphological reconstructions''. Paper presented at the Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, May 22–24, 2013, Cologne, Germany.] argues that Aroid ( South Omotic) has a "
Nilo-Saharan
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...
origin" and had become strongly influenced by other "Omotic" language groups. The Proto-Aroid vowel system is also more similar to those of the Surmic and Nilotic languages (Yigezu 2006, 2013).
''Glottolog'' 4.0 does not recognize that South Omotic belongs to one of the disputed families, and the candidate group of Omotic languages (grouping both North and South Omotic languages) remains disputed. For this reason it is considered for now as a separate family.
Reconstruction
Below is a reconstruction of Proto-Aroid by Yigezu (2013).
[Yigezu, Moges. 2013. ''Is Aroid Nilo-Saharan or Afro-Asiatic? some evidences from phonological, lexical and morphological reconstuructions''. Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, May 22–24, 2013, Cologne, Germany.]
Numerals
Comparison of numerals in individual languages:
See also
*
List of Proto-Aroid reconstructions (Wiktionary)
References
{{authority control
Language families
Languages of Ethiopia
Omotic languages