Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/44090 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Petrollino, S. Title: A grammar of Hamar : a South Omotic language of Ethiopia Issue Date: 2016-11-10 267 13 Classification As mentioned in chapter 1, there is general agreement on the internal coherence of South Omotic as a unit. The status of the Omotic family as a unit, and its status as an independent family of Afro-Asiatic is debated. The classificatory controversy con- cerns consequently also the internal organization of Afro-Asiatic. The history of the genetic classification of Omotic languages is linked to the internal classification of Cushitic, for an overview see Fleming (1976a & b), Lamberti (1991, 1993) and Azeb (2012a). 13.1 Internal and external classification of Omotic The languages which are now known as ʻOmoticʼ were originally classified under Cerulli’s Sidama branch of Cushitic, and under Moreno’s ʻWest Cushitic’. Moreno’s ‘West Cushiticʼ was also referred to as ʻta/ne languages’ since they share the 1 st person singular pronoun ta and the 2 nd person singular ne (Moreno 1940:320) . Cerulli and Moreno’s grouping did not include the South Omotic languages Hamar, Kara, Aari and Dime. Cerulli considered Aari and Dime Nilotic languages (Cerulli 1942); Moreno left the ʻAari group’ unclassied for lack of evidence. Greenberg accepted Moreno’s West Cushitic but incorporated Aari, Hamar and Dime into West Cushitic (Greenberg 1963 and later reprints). 56 In the early seventies, Greenberg’s five-branched Afro-Asiatic phylum was re-defined and West Cushitic was separated from Cushitic (Fleming 1969, Bender 1975a) and established as the sixth independent family of Afro-Asiatic. Fleming re-named West Cushitic ʻOmoticʼ (1974) since most of these languages are spoken in the area crossed by the Omo river in South West Ethiopia. As explained below, this hy- pothesis has not been accepted by all specialists in the field. Moreover, the Afro-Asiatic affiliation of Omotic as a whole (in Flemingʼs sense) has been questioned by a number of scholars, see for instance Newman (1980) or Theil (2006, 2012). Internal classifications proposed for the Omotic family are those presented by Fleming (1969, 1976b), Bender (1971, 2000, 2003a) and Fleming and Bender (1976). The classifications they have proposed are slightly different in the labels used and in the organization of the lower groups and sub-groups. Hamar, Aari, Dime and Kara are always considered as a unit of closely related languages and they are referred to as ʻSouth Omoticʼ (Fleming 1976b), ʻAroidʼ (Bender 1994, 2000), and 56 According to Fleming (1976b:308), at that time the only published data on South Omotic was Da Trentoʼs list (1941). Cerulli had unpublished data on Aari and Dime, which was not available. Preliminary data on Aari, Hamar, Banna, and Kara was collected by Fleming and Herbert Lewis in 1959 and it was given to Greenberg. 268 ʻEastern Omoticʼ (Fleming and Bender 1976). In the present work the labels ʻSouth Omoticʼ and ʻNorth Omoticʼ will be used. Fleming ʼs classication (1976): 1. North Omotic 1.1Kafa-Gimojan - Gimojan - Ometo - South :Maale - West :Basketto, Doko-Dollo - East :Harro, Kachama, Koyra, Zayse - North :Gamo, Gofa, Kullo, Wolaitta - Janjero (Yem) - Gimira (Bench) - Kafa languages (or Gonga languages) - Shinasha (Boro) - Southern Mao (Anfillo) - Kafa-Mocha 1.2 Maji languages - Nao (Nayi) - Sheko - Maji (Dizi) 2. South Omotic - Aari, Dime, Hamar, Banna, Kara According to Fleming’s classification, the Omotic family branches into two sub- families: North Omotic and South Omotic. Bender (2000) added the Mao languages 57 as an independent sub-family of Omotic and lumped South Omotic (called Aroid) and the Maji languages (called Dizoid) under the same node. Benderʼs internal organization proposes that Flemingʼs South Omotic and Maji languages (Dizi, Sheko, Nayi) form a separate unit opposed to Flemingʼs North Omotic, whereas Fleming classified the Maji languages within North Omotic. Benderʼs classication is 57 Mao is an ethnically and linguistically ambiguous term and it is used in different and confusing ways in the literature. The term refers to Omotic languages, but also to the Nilo-Saharan languages Komo and Kwama. Bender (2000, 2003a) used the term to refer to the Omotic languages Bambassi-Diddesa, Hozo, Seze and Ganza. Anfillo, which in Flemingʼs clas- sification is also named Southern Mao, is geographically not connected to the Mao (Omotic) languages and it belongs to a different branch of Omotic. See Bender (1975b) and Küspert (2015) for a terminological disambiguation. 269 supported by Hayward (2009), while Fleming and Bender (1976) argue that ʻAn unusual amount of common features between Maji (=Dizi) and Eastern (=South) Omotic may be due to the earlier prominence of the Maji kingdom in the lower Omo area. However, it is also possible that a special linguistics relationship between the two existsʼ (Fleming and Bender 1976:46). Other classifications challenge the position of the South Omotic languages within Omotic, and the existence of an independent ʻOmoticʼ family. Lambertiʼs view (1993) for instance is similar to the one proposed by Greenberg (1963): he did not consider Omotic to be an independent family of Afro-Asiatic, and restored North Omotic languages under West Cushitic. However, Lamberti separated South Omotic lan- guages from West Cushitic and established them as a parallel, special branch within the larger Cushitic family. Different from Lamberti, Zaborski (2004) has questioned the unity of Omotic and has proposed to classify North Omotic as West Cushitic, whereas South Omotic (and additionally the Mao languages) should be part of the Nilo-Saharan phylum on the basis of similarities in the pronominal system. A lexicostatistical comparison of Omotic lexicon has been carried out by Blažek (2008) and suggests that Omotic constitutes an independent branch of Afro-Asiatic. Ac- cording to Blažek, however, South Omotic languages represent an extinct branch of the Nilo-Saharan phylum, and lexical similarities with other Omotic languages can be explained by convergence (Blažek p.c., Blažek 2008; Blažek and Malášková 2016). Moges (2007, 2015) has a similar view and proposes to classify South Omotic languages under the Nilo-Saharan phylum, however, he does not provide a clas- sification for the rest of Omotic. Theil (2006, 2012) has questioned the affiliation of South Omotic (and Maji languages) to the rest of Omotic, and in general the genetic affiliation of Omotic to Afro-Asiatic. Omotic, according to Theil, should be con- sidered an isolated phylum until regular sound correspondences established by the comparative method prove the opposite. The various subgroupings proposed by Fleming and Bender show that in general the group-internal coherence of South Omotic is not questioned. The controversy re- volves around the relation (if there is any) between South and North Omotic, that is, the status of Omotic as a unit. If the link between South and North Omotic can be established, Omotic can be considered a unit, which then, depending on one’s view, could constitute a sixth branch of Afro-Asiatic, a sub-branch of Cushitic, or an isolate group not related to Afro-Asiatic. 13.2 The controversy The classifications proposed for South Omotic and Omotic languages show that the controversy is far from being settled. The scarcity of detailed grammatical de- scriptions of Omotic languages, the general methodological weakness in the his- torical investigation of Omotic languages and the primacy of morphological vs. lexical evidence in scholar’s views are among the main reasons behind such con- troversy. 270 Omotic languages have been in contact with Cushitic and Nilo-Saharan languages for a long time, and this creates challenges for comparative studies. Scholars mention various ʻlayersʼ of Cushitic (especially Eastern Cushitic, cf. Bender 2003b) or Nilotic. As a matter of fact, the intense contact and interference among Omotic, Cushitic and Nilo-Saharan languages may have obscured genetic relationships. 58 Morphology is considered to be more reliable in comparative studies as grammatical morphemes are more resistant to diffusion. Yet morphological evidence does not lead to unequivocal results. Much of the controversy boils down to the fact that Omotic lacks the diagnostic features of Afro-Asiatic such as the gender markers (the -(a)t feminine marker) and the prefix conjugation. Hayward has objected this view and has criticized the ʻSemitic biasʼ that has dominated historical-comparative Afro-Asiatic studies: scholars who see Omotic as marginal within Afro-Asiatic are often biased by the Semitic yardstick (Hayward 1995:14-15; 2000:84-85, 2003:244). Hayward even suggested the possibility of a ʻCreole Hypothesisʼ explaining the in- novative new morphology (Hayward 1995:15-16). Bender, who developed and sup- ported the hypothesis of Omotic as a unit with the reconstruction of Omotic lexicon and phonology (Bender 2003a) and morphology (Bender 2000), has expressed several doubts concerning the affiliation of Omotic to Afro-Asiatic: ʻIs this stock of proposed Omotic retained isomorphs from Afrasian sufficient in quantity and quality to establish Omotic as an Afrasian family?ʼ (Bender 2003a:314). In a paper published the same year (Bender 2003b) he actually stated that ʻthere are certainly mysteries about the nature of Omotic, and my classification, which makes Omotic a primary family within Afrasian, may be wrongʼ. As far as South Omotic languages are concerned, the strongest opponent to the Omotic/Afro-Asiatic affiliation is Zaborski (2004), who sees strong morphological support for a Nilo-Saharan affiliation in the pronominal system of South Omotic languages. Zaborski refused Bender’s idea that South Omotic pronouns have been exceptionally borrowed from neighbouring Nilotic languages (Bender 2000: 198-201). 13.3 Hamar in comparative perspective This section contributes up-to-date Hamar data to existing comparative works, namely Bender (2000, 2003a), Hayward (2009), Hayward and Tsuge (1998), Zaborski (1990, 2004).