DOCSLIB.ORG

Multilingualism and Local Literacy Practices in Ethiopia: Language Contact in Regulated and Unregulated Spaces1

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Multilingualism and Local Literacy Practices in Ethiopia: Language Contact in Regulated and Unregulated Spaces1 Multilingual Margins 2014, 1(1): 74—100 55 Multilingualism and Local Literacy Practices in Ethiopia: Language contact in regulated and unregulated spaces1 Elizabeth Lanza University of Oslo, Norway Hirut Woldemariam University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia [email protected] Abstract The study of the linguistic landscape has provided a new dimension to theories and issues related to multilingualism, including language policy. In this growing field of inquiry, however, not enough attention has been given to the linguistic landscape in sites in the Global South. Since one of the aims of literacy studies is to reveal the variety and social patternings of practices, there is a need to compare linguistic landscape data with other various textual materials. In this article, we present linguistic landscape data from two federal regional capitals in Ethiopia that demonstrate multilingual language use. We also compare the linguistic contact patterns with those found in schoolbooks used in the same region. Such a comparison involves language use in unregulated as well as in regulated spaces (see Sebba 2009). Regional ethnically based languages are now being used in new arenas, including the linguistic landscape and education because of a new language policy promoting the use and development of regional languages. The two regional capitals provide privileged sites for examining the products of local literacy practices, involving values, attitudes, ideologies, and social relationships. We discuss the results in light of various ideologies and argue for the speaker-writer’s active mobilisation of multilingual resources in new language arenas. Keywords: linguistic landscape, literacy, language contact, language ideology, regional languages, Amharic, multilingualism © Lanza, Woldemariam and CMDR. 2014 56 LANZA AND WOLDEMARIAM INTRODUCTION contact between African languages is dramatically underresearched’, as most he study of written language has studies of language contact situations in- Tcome to the fore in current ap- volving African languages entail contact proaches to multilingualism. As a result, between a local and a former colonial a ‘new approach to multilingualism’, the language. While work on language con- study of the linguistic landscape (Gorter tact often deals exclusively with structural 2006) or the written language in the pub- properties of language, a more function- lic sphere has emerged. First proposed by alist perspective, as noted in Matras Landry and Bourhis (1997) as a barom- (2009: 4), rests on a view of language eter for measuring ethnolinguistic vitality as social activity for which ‘bilingual (or in Canada, this study is today a thriving multilingual) speakers have a complex field of inquiry documenting various so- repertoire of linguistic structures at their cio-cultural aspects of languages in mul- disposal’. tilingual societies (Shohamy and Gorter Literacy is conceived of as ‘situated 2008). In more recent work on linguistic social practices embedded within rela- landscape, the focus has been on signage tions of culture and power in specific con- in world cities and its role in the construc- texts’ (Prinsloo and Baynham 2008:2). As tion of social and cultural meaning in Barton and Hamilton (2000: 7) point out: multilingual urban spaces (Ben-Rafael, ‘The notion of literacy practices offers a Shohamy and Barni 2010). However, not powerful way of conceptualising the link much attention has been given as yet to between the activities of reading and the study of the linguistic landscape in writing and the social structures in which urban sites in the Global South (but see they are embedded, and which they help Kasanga 2010; Reh 2004, Stroud and shape.’ Literacy practices involve values, Mpendukana 2009). Dagenais, Moore, attitudes, ideologies, and social relation- Sabatier, Lamarre and Armand (2008) ships – in sum, how people in a particular make particular mention of the paucity of culture construct literacy, how they talk studies on the linguistic landscape in the about literacy and make sense of it. The educational domain. Showing its value, social approach to literacy as articulated Cenoz and Gorter (2008) discuss how in Barton and Hamilton (2000), Barton the linguistic landscape can be seen as (2001), and Prinsloo and Baynham an additional source of input in second (2008) emphasises the historical dimen- language acquisition, contributing to a sion to literacy. Literacy practices change type of literacy that is multimodal and and new ones are often acquired through multilingual. processes of informal learning as well as In this article, we attempt to place the through formal education and learning. study of the linguistic landscape within a The two regional capitals of Ethiopia larger framework of literacy practices. We in question provide privileged sites for do so by specifically examining multilin- examining the products of multilingual- gual language use, particularly language ism and local literacy practices. Because contact as documented in the linguistic of a new language policy promoting the landscape of two regional capitals in use and development of ethnically based Ethiopia, and by further comparing it regional languages, these languages are with language contact phenomena in oth- now being used in new public arenas, in- er texts, namely children’s schoolbooks. cluding the linguistic landscape and edu- Lüpke (2010:2) points out that ‘language cation. Ethiopia does not have a colonial © Lanza, Woldemariam and CMDR. 2014 Multilingualism and local literacy practices in Ethiopia 57 past yet English is an official second lan- languages spoken, divided among four guage and thus has a prominent place in different language families: the Semitic, the linguistic profile of the country. Hence Cushitic and Omotic families of the Afro- a focus on regions in Ethiopia provides an asiatic Phylum, and those belonging to opportunity to investigate language con- the Nilo-Saharan Phylum (for an over- tact between African languages as well as view of languages in Ethiopia, see Crass contact with English, a language usually and Meyer 2008). The Semitic languages, associated with globalisation, which has such as Amharic and Tigrinya, are spoken been recontextualised as a local language in northern, central and eastern Ethiopia. in Africa (Higgins 2009). In this article, The Cushitic languages are mostly spo- we explore the issue of language contact ken in central, southern and eastern in local literacy practices in Ethiopia, Ethiopia. The language of the largest a country considered marginal from a ethnic group in the country, Oromo, is global perspective. Focusing on regional considered by Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) capitals, we also take further steps to the as a ‘macrolanguage’, that is, ‘multiple, margins within the country. Yet the urban closely related individual languages that areas in focus in each region are indeed are deemed in some usage contexts to be centres within the margin. Such a vantage a single language’. point allows us to trace multilingual lit- Ethiopia’s major ethnic groups in- eracy practices across trajectories of cen- clude the Oromo, who speak the Cushitic tre and periphery, or margin, within one language of the Cushitic people who country and within a global perspective. make up about 40% of Ethiopia’s total In the following section, we first pre- population. The Semitic Amhara and sent an overview of the linguistic situation Tigrayans comprise only 32% of the in Ethiopia and the new language policy population; however, historically they that became operative in the early 1990s; have dominated the country politically. this overview is contextualised within an Despite the common Semitic background historical framework. Next, we present of the Amhara and the Tigrayans, their the methodology we employed in collect- languages are mutually unintelligible. ing the various data in the two regions. Amharic diverges significantly from the Subsequently, we provide an analysis of other Semitic languages of Ethiopia as a the language use and particularly the result of its extensive contact with Cushitic language contact we found in the two and Omotic languages (Yimam 2004). types of data – the linguistic landscape Amharic is used as a lingua franca and the educational texts – in light of by all Ethiopians. This practice is encour- local ideologies. In conclusion, we offer aged by a range of opportunities, includ- alternative interpretations of the patterns ing its function as a working language of we found and discuss their implications the federal government, trade, urbanisa- for multiling-ualism on the margin. tion, labour migration, displacement and other forms of migration, education and literacy, and perhaps most significantly, MULTILINGUAL ETHIOPIA by the high proportion of intermarriages thiopia, located in the Horn of Africa, between members of different ethnic or Ehas a population of about 80 million linguistic groups. Amharic continues to and is multilingual, multiethnic and cul- spread, both as a first language and as turally pluralistic. According to Ethnologue a second language, in spite of the intro- (Lewis 2009), there are eighty-five living duction of regional languages for wider © Lanza, Woldemariam and CMDR. 2014 58 LANZA AND WOLDEMARIAM purposes (Cohen 2006: 171). Amharic regime. In order to conform to the ideals continues to be the most widely used lan- of socialism and to demonstrate political guage in Ethiopia and has a long literary change, the military government of the tradition.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 519 Ethiopia Report With
    Minority Rights Group International R E P O R Ethiopia: A New Start? T • ETHIOPIA: A NEW START? AN MRG INTERNATIONAL REPORT AN MRG INTERNATIONAL BY KJETIL TRONVOLL ETHIOPIA: A NEW START? Acknowledgements Minority Rights Group International (MRG) gratefully © Minority Rights Group 2000 acknowledges the support of Bilance, Community Aid All rights reserved Abroad, Dan Church Aid, Government of Norway, ICCO Material from this publication may be reproduced for teaching or other non- and all other organizations and individuals who gave commercial purposes. No part of it may be reproduced in any form for com- financial and other assistance for this Report. mercial purposes without the prior express permission of the copyright holders. For further information please contact MRG. This Report has been commissioned and is published by A CIP catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. MRG as a contribution to public understanding of the ISBN 1 897 693 33 8 issue which forms its subject. The text and views of the ISSN 0305 6252 author do not necessarily represent, in every detail and in Published April 2000 all its aspects, the collective view of MRG. Typset by Texture Printed in the UK on bleach-free paper. MRG is grateful to all the staff and independent expert readers who contributed to this Report, in particular Tadesse Tafesse (Programme Coordinator) and Katrina Payne (Reports Editor). THE AUTHOR KJETIL TRONVOLL is a Research Fellow and Horn of Ethiopian elections for the Constituent Assembly in 1994, Africa Programme Director at the Norwegian Institute of and the Federal and Regional Assemblies in 1995.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethiopia Toponymic Factfile
    TOPONYMIC FACTFILE Ethiopia Country name Ethiopia State title Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Name of citizen Ethiopian Official language(s)1 Amharic (amh)2 Country name in official language(s) ኢትዮጵያ (Ītiyop’iya) የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራላዊ ዴሞክራሲያዊ ሪፐብሊክ (YeĪtiyop’iya State title in official language(s) Fēdēralawī Dēmokirasīyawī Rīpeblīk) Script Amharic (also seen as Ge’ez or Ethiopic script3) Romanization System BGN/PCGN Romanization of Amharic, 1967 ISO-3166 code (alpha-2/alpha-3) ET/ETH Capital (Conventional name) Addis Ababa4 Capital in official language (romanized in አዲስ አበባ (Ādīs Ābeba)5 brackets) Population c.115 million6 Introduction Ethiopia is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa, sharing international boundaries with Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan and South Sudan. It is similar in size to South Africa and Egypt, and is the 2nd most populous country in Africa (after Nigeria). Until 1993, Eritrea was incorporated as part of Ethiopia. Ethiopia was occupied by Italy from 1936 to 1941, but otherwise has not been colonised by a European power. Geographical names policy PCGN policy for geographical names in Ethiopia is to apply the BGN/PCGN 1967 Romanization System for Amharic to names in their original script forms. This system is used on official US and UK cartographic products. 1 As of February 2020, four regional languages have been elevated to the status of working federal government languages: Oromo; Tigrinya; Somali and Afar. 2 ISO 639 codes are given for languages mentioned in this Factfile. 3 Ge’ez (or Ethiopic) is a group name for a number of alphabets, including Tigrinya and Amharic: they are ‘abugida’ scripts, in which each character carries an inherent vowel (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Proposal for Ethiopic Script Root Zone LGR
    Proposal for Ethiopic Script Root Zone LGR LGR Version 2 Date: 2017-05-17 Document version:5.2 Authors: Ethiopic Script Generation Panel Contents 1 General Information/ Overview/ Abstract ........................................................................................ 3 2 Script for which the LGR is proposed ................................................................................................ 3 3 Background on Script and Principal Languages Using It .................................................................... 4 3.1 Local Languages Using the Script .............................................................................................. 4 3.2 Geographic Territories of the Language or the Language Map of Ethiopia ................................ 7 4 Overall Development Process and Methodology .............................................................................. 8 4.1 Sources Consulted to Determine the Repertoire....................................................................... 8 4.2 Team Composition and Diversity .............................................................................................. 9 4.3 Analysis of Code Point Repertoire .......................................................................................... 10 4.4 Analysis of Code Point Variants .............................................................................................. 11 5 Repertoire ....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • University of Kent the Development of Oromo
    Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Degeneh Bijiga, Teferi (2015) The Development of Oromo Writing System. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/52387/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html University of Kent The Development of Oromo Writing System A Thesis By Teferi Degeneh Bijiga School of European Culture and Languages Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Ph.D. November, 2015 Abstract The development and use of languages for official, education, religion, etc. purposes have been a major political issue in many developing multilingual countries. A number of these countries, including China and India, have recognised the issues and developed language policies that have provided some ethnic groups with the right to develop their languages and cultures by using writing systems based on scripts suitable for these purposes.
    [Show full text]
  • Partial List of Mass Execution of Oromos and Other Nation And
    Udenrigsudvalget 2013-14 URU Alm.del Bilag 174 Offentligt Partial list of Mass execution of Oromos and other nation and nationalities of Ethiopia (Documented by Oromo Liberation Front Information and Research Unit, March 2014) Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere!!! Ethiopia is one of the Countries at Genocide Risk in accordance with Genocide Watch’s Report released on March 12, 2013. •Genocide Watch considers Ethiopia to have already reached Stage 7, genocidal massacres, against many of its peoples, including the Anuak, Ogadeni, Oromo and Omo tribes. •We recommend that the United States government immediately cease all military assistance to the Ethiopian Peoples Defense Forces. We also recommend strong diplomatic protests to the Meles Zenawi regime against massive violations of human rights in Ethiopia Article 281 of the Ethiopian Penal Code : Genocide; Crimes against Humanity Whosoever, with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, religious or political group, organizes, orders or engages in, be it in time of war or in time of peace: (a) killings, bodily harm or serious injury to the physical or mental health of members of the group, in any way whatsoever; or (b) measures to prevent the propagation or continued survival of its members or their progeny; or (c) the compulsory movement or dispersion of peoples or children, or their placing under living conditions calculated to result in their death or disappearance, is punishable with rigorous imprisonment from five years to life, or, in cases of exceptional
    [Show full text]
  • The Origin of Afaan Oromo: Mother Language
    Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: G Linguistics & Education Volume 15 Issue 12 Version 1.0 Year 2015 Type: Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal Publisher: Global Journals Inc. (USA) Online ISSN: 2249-460x & Print ISSN: 0975-587X The Origin of Afaan Oromo: Mother Language By Ibrahim Bedane Madda Walabu University, Ethiopia Abstract- Many people have spent their lives in search of language origin and have made great efforts to discover which language is the mother of all other languages (Mother language). As their efforts were not rightly directed, they could not achieve success. Thus, this paper examines the origin of Afaan Oromo and its impact on theories of languages and language origin. In the area of language and language origin, this paper argued that Afaan Oromo has unique properties to offer the field, or at least the richness that is provided by the majority of words creation offers basic and unusual opportunities for theoretically-minded theories. In both cases what we have learned from Afaan Oromo has provided us major insight into the nature of language origin and mother language. No wonder, ‘One of the best-kept secrets of the Afaan Oromo is the predictability, clarity, source imitating and/or conceptually approximating nature and rules of roots and its verb inflections’. Afaan Oromo is purely natural nature based language. Each and every roots of Afaan Oromo were created from either corresponding Sounds or available roots and thus, converges to sounds proximate to it. Keywords: afaan oromo, imitative root, mother language, root system, root creation, sign, sound, symbolic root, 5s acquisition process.
    [Show full text]
  • Dentality, Areal Features, and Phonological Change in Northeastern Bantu*
    Studies in African Linguistics Volume 16, Number 3, December 1985 DENTALITY, AREAL FEATURES, AND PHONOLOGICAL CHANGE IN NORTHEASTERN BANTU* Derek Nurse University of British Columbia A minority of the world's languages appear to have a series of dental (as opposed to alveolar) obstruents. Proto-Bantu does not have such a series, nor do most East African Bantu lan­ guages. By contrast, three Bantu languages in northeastern Kenya (the northern Swahili dialects, Pokomo, E1wana) have ac­ quired such a series, which thus merits explanation. There are three mechanisms involved: (a) the borrowing of loan sounds along with loan vocabulary, (b) a simple phonological shift whereby inherited alveolars moved one place to become den­ tal, and (c) a more complicated shift whereby inherited (pre) palatals bypassed an intervening alveolar series to become den­ tal, a process little reported in the literature. It is hy­ pothesised that these forms of denta1isation took place u~der historical conditions of contact with neighboring Cushitic communities--not the larger Eastern Cushitic communities of today (Somali, Orma), but rather the ancestral forms of what are now remnant languages, (probably) Southern Cushitic Daha10 and (possible) Eastern Cushitic Aweera. 1. Introduction Our purpose is to attempt to explain the appearance of denta1ity as an areal innovation in the consonant systems of the Bantu (Sabaki) langua~es of the Lower Tana region of northeastern Kenya. A series of dental stops occurs in a minority of languages wor1d~ide. If we take the selection of 700 languages in Ruh1en [1976] to be representative of the world's languages, then we find the following.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ethiopian Language Policy: a Historical and Typological Overview1
    Ethiopian Journal of Languages and Literature Vol. XII No. 2 June 2012 1 The Ethiopian Language Policy: A Historical and Typological Overview1 Zelealem Leyew Abstract: This paper describes the Ethiopian language policy from the historical and typological perspectives. In the historical overview, the different covert and overt language policies so far encountered are examined. A comparison is made among the language ideologies of the Imperial (1930-1974), the Derg(1974-1991) and the EPRDF (1991 – ) governments. In the typological overview, the language policies implemented by different governments are classified by type based on the existing literature on language policy. Issues surrounding language diversity, status and corpus planning and policy formulations are addressed. An attempt is made to assess and compare the Ethiopian experience with experiences of other multilingual countries. Ethiopia is not only a multilingual but also a biscriptual country in which the Ethiopic and Latin scripts are competing. Due to its historical trajectory, Ethiopia is neither Anglo-Phone nor Franco-phone in the strict sense of the terms. It promotes an endoglossic language policy with English playing an important role, but without connection to the colonial legacy. These and other complex sociolinguistic profiles make the prevalence of an optimal language policy in Ethiopia somewhat complex as compared to other Sub-Saharan African countries that promote exoglossic or mixed language policies. Key words: Language policy, Language planning, Language diversity, Linguistic human rights, Lingua-franca Assocaite Professor, Department of Linguistics, Addis Ababa University 1 I am deeply indebted to Ato Ayalew Shibeshi, Dr. Bekale Seyum and Fitsum Abate for their valuable comments on the first draft of this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • Similative Morphemes As Purpose Clause Markers in Ethiopia and Beyond Yvonne Treis
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Archive Ouverte a LUniversite Lyon 2 Similative morphemes as purpose clause markers in Ethiopia and beyond Yvonne Treis To cite this version: Yvonne Treis. Similative morphemes as purpose clause markers in Ethiopia and beyond. 2016. <hal-01351924> HAL Id: hal-01351924 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01351924 Submitted on 4 Aug 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destin´eeau d´ep^otet `ala diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publi´esou non, lished or not. The documents may come from ´emanant des ´etablissements d'enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche fran¸caisou ´etrangers,des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou priv´es. Similative morphemes as purpose clause markers in Ethiopia and beyond Yvonne Treis LLACAN (CNRS, INALCO, Université Sorbonne Paris-Cité) Abstract In more than 30 languages spoken at the Horn of Africa, a similative morpheme ‘like’ or a noun ‘manner’ or ‘type’ is used as a marker of purpose clauses. The paper first elaborates on the many functions of the enclitic morpheme =g ‘manner’ in Kambaata (Highland East Cushitic), which is used, among others, as a marker of the standard in similative and equative comparison (‘like’, ‘as’), of temporal clauses of immediate anteriority (‘as soon as’), of complement clauses (‘that’) and, most notably, of purpose clauses (‘in order to’).
    [Show full text]
  • Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Papers
    MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY WORKING PAPERS WORKING PAPER NO. 103 GÜNTHER SCHLEE ETHNOPOLITICS AND GABRA ORigiNS Halle / Saale 2008 ISSN 1615-4568 Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, PO Box 110351, 06017 Halle / Saale, Phone: +49 (0)345 2927- 0, Fax: +49 (0)345 2927- 402, http://www.eth.mpg.de, e-mail: [email protected] Ethnopolitics and Gabra origins1 Günther Schlee2 Abstract Historical anthropology has turned from a specialist and slightly old-fashioned research interest into a hotly contended field of study. Ethnogenesis, i.e. the way in which ethnic groups have evolved out of earlier such configurations, has been incorporated into the discourse of ethnic activists. The present paper deals with reconstructions of the past by Aneesa Kassam, who in turn bases her arguments to a substantial degree on Gemetchu Megerssa’s statements. It confirms some of her findings and elaborates on them. Some of her main points, however, which deal with the degree to which the present day Gabra can be derived from the Boran Oromo, are found to be at variance with other evidence. The question is raised whether her perspective is influenced by modern Oromo nationalism or individual Oromo nationalists. On a more general level, the paper touches the question to which extent it is possible to write “factual” history. The ambition is to establish at least a skeleton of fact on which intersubjective agreement can be reached and which can be contrasted against interest-guided versions of history or ideological distortions. 1 I thank Paul Baxter, Brian Donahoe, Dereje Feyissa, Christina Echi Gabbert, and Jan Hultin for their helpful comments on the draft of this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • African Language Offerings
    UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA AFRICA CENTER African Language Offerings Stimulate your brain with unique African sounds and cultures by learning any of the following languages • Amharic (Ethiopia) • Chichewa (Malawi) • Igbo (Southeastern Nigeria) • Malagasy (Madagascar) • Setswana (Botswana and South Africa) • Sudanese Arabic (Sudan) • Swahili (Tanzania, Kenya, Comoro islands, Rwanda, and Somalia) • Tigrinya (Eritrea and Ethiopia) • Twi (Ghana and Ivory Coast) • Wolof (Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania) • Yoruba (Southwestern Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Sierra Leone) • Zulu (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland and Malawi Fulfill your language requirement Fulfill your minor or major in African Studies Enhance your cultural aptitude with Study Abroad programs in Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa For more information contact the African Language Program Director, Dr. Audrey N. Mbeje: Tel. (215) 898-4299 or email [email protected] Website: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/afl Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship! http://www.africa.upenn.edu/afl/FLAS.htm Africa Center University of Pennsylvania 647 Williams Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104-2615 Phone:(215)898-6971 Language Descriptions: Speakers and Places Amharic —Is the national language of Ethiopia and is spoken by around 12 million people as their mother- tongue and by many more as a second language. Though only one of seventy or so languages spoken in Ethi- opia, Amharic has been the language of the court and the dominant population group in Highland Ethiopia. Amharic belongs to the Semitic family of languages and as such is related to Arabic and Hebrew. Whilst many of the grammatical forms is reminiscent of the latter languages, the sentence structure (syntax) is very different and has more in common with the non-Semitic languages of Ethiopia.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ethiopian Language Area,Journal of Ethio Ian Studies, 8/2167-80
    DOCUMEUT RESUME FL 002 580 ED 056 566 46 AUTHOR Ferguson, Charles A. TITLE The Ethiopean LanguageArea. INSTITUTION Stanford Univ., Calif. SPONS AGENCY Institute of InternationalStudies (DHEW/OE) Washingtn, D.C. PUB DATE Jul 71 CONTRACT OEC-0-71-1018(823) NOTE 22p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29 DESCRIPTORS Amharic; Consonants;*Descriptive Linguistics; *Distinctive Features;Geographic Distribution; *Grammar; *LanguageClassification; Language Patterns; LanguageTypology7 Morphology(Languages); Phonemes; *Phonology;Pronunciation; Semitic Languages; Sumali;Structural Analysis; Syntax; Tables (Data); Verbs;Vowels IDENTIFIERS *Ethiopia ABSTRACT This paper constitutesthe fifth chapterof the forthcoming volume Languagein Ethiopia.ft In aneffort to better linguistic area, theauthor analyzes define the particular in the area have phonological and grammaticalfeatures that languages in common. A numberof features havebeen identified as characteristic of the area,and this chapterdiscusses eight phonological and eighteengrammatical characteristicswhich constitute significantitems within thelanguages under illustrate the distributionof these features consideration. Tables is included. among theparticular languages. Alist of references cm Cr. D 1-LtLet_121 ar_.ok 43./4 FL THE ETHIOPIAN LANGUAGEAREA Charles A. Ferguson HEW Contract No. OEC-0-71-1018(823) Institute of InternationalStudies U.S. Office of Education U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION & WcI PARE OFFICE In- EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FRO M TH E PERSONOR ORGANIZATION
    [Show full text]