The Mesmes language is an extinct West Gurage language, one of the Ethiopian Semitic languages 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 Er ...

. There are still many people who claim the Mesmes ethnic identity, but none who speak the language. The last speaker of the language was interviewed by a

language survey A language survey is conducted around the world for a variety of reasons. *measuring people's ability to speak and understand another language (usually community based, not school based) ( multilingualism) *studying people's attitudes about differe ...

team when he was approximately 80 years old. He had not spoken the language for 30 years, having nobody to speak it with since his brother died. The Mesmes have

shifted ''Sunshine Kitty'' is the fourth studio album by Swedish singer Tove Lo, released on 20 September 2019 by Island Records. It includes the singles "Glad He's Gone", " Bad as the Boys" featuring Alma, " Jacques" with Jax Jones, "Really Don't Like ...

to speaking the Hadiyya language. However, they still maintain some cultural distinctives, including their own style of house architecture. The

comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...

has shown that the language is most closely related to the

Inor Inor can refer to: * Inor language, spoken in Ethiopia * Inor, Meuse Inor () is a commune in the Meuse department in Grand Est in north-eastern France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in ...

variety of Gurage.Ahland (2010), p. 88

References

*Ahland, Michael Bryan. (2010). ''Language death in Mesmes''. Dallas: SIL International and the University of Texas at Arlington. *Bustorf, Dirk. (2007). "Mäsmäs”, in: Siegbert Uhlig (ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 3: D-Ha, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, p. 838-39.

Notes

Extinct languages of Africa Languages of Ethiopia Ethiopian Semitic languages {{Semitic-lang-stub