Sebat Bet ("Seven houses") is an
Ethio-Semitic language of the
Afroasiatic language family
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 the ...
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 ...
.
Overview
One of the
Gurage languages
Gurage (, Gurage: ጉራጌ) are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting Ethiopia.G. W. E. Huntingford, "William A. Shack: The Gurage: a people of the ensete culture" They inhabit the Gurage Zone and East Gurage Zone, a fertile, semi-mount ...
, Sebat Bet is divided into several dialects.
The latter are spoken in the western
Gurage Region:
*
Chaha (Cheha) is spoken in
Cheha and is the best studied of these varieties
*
Mesqan is spoken in
Meskan
*
Ezha (Eza, Izha) is spoken in
Ezhana Wolene
*
Muher is spoken in the mountains north of Cheha and Ezhana Wolene
*
Geta
Geta may refer to:
Places
*Geta (woreda), a woreda in Ethiopia's Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region
*Geta, Åland, a municipality in Finland
*Geta, Nepal, a town in Attariya Municipality, Kailali District, Seti Zone, Nepal
*Get� ...
is spoken in
Geta
Geta may refer to:
Places
*Geta (woreda), a woreda in Ethiopia's Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region
*Geta, Åland, a municipality in Finland
*Geta, Nepal, a town in Attariya Municipality, Kailali District, Seti Zone, Nepal
*Get� ...
*
Gumer (Gwemarra, Gʷəmarə), spoken in
Gumer
*
Inor Inor can refer to:
* Inor language, spoken in Ethiopia
* Inor, Meuse, France
{{disambiguation ...
(Ennemor), spoken in
Enemorina Eaner
:*
Endegegn and the extinct
Mesmes language
The Mesmes language is an extinct West Gurage language, one of the Ethiopian Semitic languages spoken in Ethiopia. There are still many people who claim the Mesmes ethnic identity, but none who speak the language. The last speaker of the langu ...
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-RO ...
information o
Chaha
Languages of Ethiopia
Outer Ethiopian Semitic languages
{{Semitic-lang-stub