The Gurage languages (Gurage: ጉራጌ), also known as Guragie, is a dialect-continuum language, which belong to the
Semitic
Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta.
Semitic may also refer to:
Religions
* Abrahamic religions
** ...
branch of the
Afroasiatic
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 ...
language family. They are spoken by the
Gurage people
The Gurage (, Gurage language, Gurage: ጉራጌ) are a Ethiopian Semitic languages, 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 Z ...
, who inhabit the
Gurage Zone
Gurage is a zone in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. The region is home to the Gurage people. Gurage is bordered on the southeast by Hadiya and Yem special woreda, on the west, north and east by the Oromia ...
within the larger multi-ethnic
in central
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 Er ...
.
Overview
The Gurage dialects form what is collectively called ''Guragigna'' or Guragigna. Almost all of the dialects are intelligible with other dialects indicating that they have organic relationships as well as indicating that they originated from a proto-Gurage language. Guragigna and its dialects belong to the Southern subdivision of the
Ethiopian Semitic languages
Ethiopian Semitic (also Ethio-Semitic, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic or Abyssinian) is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages, itself a sub-branch of Semitic, part of th ...
within the Afroasiatic family.
All the Gurage subgroups (Northern, Western, and Eastern Gurage) belong to South Ethiopic. East Gur