Language and National Identity in Africa
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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. -
Language Usage and Identity of Somali Males in America Ali Hassan St
St. Cloud State University theRepository at St. Cloud State Culminating Projects in English Department of English 12-2017 "Where Did You Leave the Somali Language?" Language Usage and Identity of Somali Males in America Ali Hassan St. Cloud State University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds Recommended Citation Hassan, Ali, ""Where Did You Leave the Somali Language?" Language Usage and Identity of Somali Males in America" (2017). Culminating Projects in English. 106. https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/106 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at theRepository at St. Cloud State. It has been accepted for inclusion in Culminating Projects in English by an authorized administrator of theRepository at St. Cloud State. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Where did you leave the Somali Language?” Language usage and identity of Somali Males in America by Ali Hassan A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of St. Cloud State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English: Teaching English as a Second Language December, 2017 Thesis Committee: Michael Schwartz, Chairperson Choonkyong Kim Rami Amiri 2 Abstract Research in second language teaching and learning has many aspects to focus on, but this paper will focus on the sociolinguistic issues related to language usage and identity. Language usage is the lens that is used to understand the identity of Somali males in America. Language usage in social contexts gives us the opportunity to learn the multiple identities of Somali males in America. -
The Oslo Dialect of Somali Tonal Adaptations of Norwegian Loanwords
The Oslo Dialect of Somali Tonal adaptations of Norwegian loanwords Nina Hagen Kaldhol LING4190 MA thesis in linguistics Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies UNIVERSITY OF OSLO Spring 2017 The Oslo Dialect of Somali Tonal adaptations of Norwegian loanwords Nina Hagen Kaldhol LING4190 MA thesis in linguistics Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies UNIVERSITY OF OSLO Spring 2017 © Nina Hagen Kaldhol, 2017 The Oslo Dialect of Somali Tonal adaptations of Norwegian loanwords Nina Hagen Kaldhol http://www.duo.uio.no Printed: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo iv Abstract This thesis presents the first linguistic investigation of the Somali language as it is spo- ken in Norway. The goal is to describe what happens to Norwegian words when they are borrowed by Somali speakers. Both languages have simple tone systems, and this study explores what happens when these two systems meet: Do Norwegian loanwords show the same tone patterns as native Somali words, or is Norwegian tone preserved when words are borrowed by Somali speakers? Previous research on loanword prosody suggests that the former is likely when the recipi- ent language has strong restrictions on tone. In Somali, the distribution of tone is governed by and predictable from grammatical features, so the same principle may apply here. How- ever, previous research also suggests that such restrictions may be violated in loanwords in situations of intimate language contact. The speakers in the present study are bilinguals liv- ing in Norway, and use both Norwegian and Somali every day. Therefore, their borrowing provides a test case for these two competing possibilities. The material presented here was collected during fieldwork in Oslo, and consists of spon- taneous speech from nine native Somali speakers, in addition to some elicited forms. -
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. -
Somali Parents' Beliefs and Strategies for Raising Bilingual Children
St. Cloud State University theRepository at St. Cloud State Culminating Projects in English Department of English 6-2018 Somali-English Bilingualism: Somali Parents’ Beliefs and Strategies for Raising Bilingual Children Abdirahman Ikar St. Cloud State University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds Recommended Citation Ikar, Abdirahman, "Somali-English Bilingualism: Somali Parents’ Beliefs and Strategies for Raising Bilingual Children" (2018). Culminating Projects in English. 137. https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/137 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at theRepository at St. Cloud State. It has been accepted for inclusion in Culminating Projects in English by an authorized administrator of theRepository at St. Cloud State. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Somali-English Bilingualism: Somali Parents’ Beliefs and Strategies for Raising Bilingual Children by Abdirahman Ikar A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of St. Cloud State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Master of Arts in English: Teaching English as a Second Language June, 2018 Thesis Committee: James Robinson, Chairperson Choonkyong Kim Rami Amiri 2 Abstract The American Midwest is home to a large number of refugees from Somalia. Numerous studies have explored immigrant communities’ beliefs and strategies for bilingual development of their children. However, there has only been one study (Abikar, 2013) that explored this topic from the perspective of Somali parents. The aim of this qualitative study was to look at first- generation Somali parents’ beliefs and strategies for bilingual development of their children. 10 first-generation Somali parents were interviewed using semi-structured interview questions. -
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’). -
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. -
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 -
Aethiopica 7 (2004) International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies
Aethiopica 7 (2004) International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies ________________________________________________________________ GROVER HUDSON, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Article Languages of Ethiopia and Languages of the 1994 Ethiopian Census Aethiopica 7 (2004), 160߃172 ISSN: 1430߃1938 ________________________________________________________________ Published by UniversitÃt Hamburg Asien Afrika Institut, Abteilung Afrikanistik und £thiopistik Hiob Ludolf Zentrum fÛr £thiopistik Languages of Ethiopia and Languages of the 1994 Ethiopian Census GROVER HUDSON, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Table 1 below lists alphabetically the 77 Ethiopian speech varieties reported by the 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia with their num- bers of native speakers and ethnic group members, derived from Tables 2.15 and 2.17 of the Census (Office of Population and Housing Census Com- mission 1998a). Names and spellings are those common in the Ethiopian linguistics literature rather than those of the Census. In another paper, Hudson 2003, I have presented this table and other in- formation of linguistic significance derived from the 1994 Census. There I made the following seven points: 1. Despite expected difficulties for the Census arising from the political sensitivities associatied with linguistic and ethnolinguistic questions, an unsystematic and ambiguous linguistic nomenclature, and the practical problem of reaching and sampling in all corners of Ethiopia, linguistic findings of the Census seem reasonably consistent with the typically un- quantified and often intuitive knowledge of Ethiopianist linguists. 2. With its quantifications the Census confirms the special roles of Amharic and Oromo as Ethiopian lingua francae, languages of broad national use. Findings of the Census highlight the importance of Amharic as the lin- gua franca of urban Ethiopia, and of Oromo, less dominantly, as the lin- gua franca of rural Ethiopia. -
Djibouti Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle
Linguistic research in the Horn of Africa: Djibouti Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle To cite this version: Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle. Linguistic research in the Horn of Africa: Djibouti . 2017. halshs- 01672933 HAL Id: halshs-01672933 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01672933 Preprint submitted on 27 Dec 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Linguistic research in the Horn of Africa Djibouti Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle LLACAN (CNRS / INALCO)1. France. Brief historical background The Republic of Djibouti (RD) eponymous of its sea-port capital was established in 1977; it is the smallest state of the Horn of Africa. The French colonization in the area began at the end of the nineteenth century with the settlement in 1883 of a protectorate named Territoire d’Obock et de ses dépendances (Territory of Obock and its dependences). It was united as the Côte française des Somalis (CFS) in 1896, with Djibouti-city as capital. In 1967 the colony was renamed Territoire Français des Afars et des Issas (TFAI). Linguistic background Two main ethno-linguistic groups are living in this area, Somali and ʕAfar in addition to a minority of Arabs settled on the northern coast and in Djibouti-city. -
Ethnic Group and Mother Tongue in the Ethiopian Censuses of 1994 and 2007
Ethnic Group and Mother Tongue in the Ethiopian Censuses of 1994 and 2007 GROVER HUDSON, Michigan State University, East Lansing The Ethiopian census of 2007 (POPULATION CENSUS COMMISSION 2007) provides information on ethnic groups (Table 3.1, pp. 98–122) and mother tongues (Table 3.2, pp. 123–148), as did the census of 1994 (POPULATION CENSUS COMMISSION 1994; HUDSON 2003; 2004). We read (POPULATION CENSUS COMMISSION 2007: 96) that “Detailed lists of the names & codes of the country’s languages were provided to the enumerators in their instruction manuals. Similar types of questions were used for both the 1994 & 2007 cen- suses, except that during the 1994 census [a] question about the most fre- quently used additional language of respondents was also asked in addition to mother tongue & ethnic group”. Presented here in four tables are comparisons of the “country total” cen- sus results for 2007 and 1994 concerning ethnic group and mother tongue of respondents, with attention to differences between the two censuses and within each census between ethnic groups and mother tongues (ethnic groups without mother tongues and vice versa). Some of the differences can be explained with reasonable confidence but some only as suppositions; some remain unexplained. (The census also provides results by Regions: Tǝgray; ʿAfar; Amhara; Oromia; Somali; Benišangul-Gumuz; Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP); Gambella; Harari; Addis Abäba; Dǝrre Dawa; and (sic) “Region 17”.) The 2007 census reported two ethnic groups without associated mother tongues (Mejenger, Silte; s. notes 27, 34), and 5 mother tongues without an associated ethnic group (Demegna, Felashigna, Koyrigna, Shetagna, Shitagna; s. -
The Language and Dialect Atlas of Kenya Project 1973-80
The Language and Dialect Atlas of Kenya Project 1973-80 Bernd Heine Institut für Afrikanistik University of Cologne [email protected] 1. The Project Work on the language atlas of Kenya (Sprachen- und Dialektatlas Kenia ), directed by Bernd Heine and Wilhelm Möhlig of the Institut für Afrikanistik , University of Cologne, was carried out between 1973 and 1980. This work benefited from earlier field work that the author was able to conduct within the mapping project Afrika-Kartenwerk between 1969 and 1971 (Heine & Köhler 1981).1 Responsibility within the atlas project was divided up between the two directors, in that Wilhelm Möhlig was in charge of Bantu languages and Bernd Heine of non-Bantu languages; the present paper highlights most of all the latter part of the project. The project was carried out in cooperation with the Department of Linguistics and African Languages of the University of Nairobi, to which I wish to express my deeply-felt gratitude for all the support it gave to the project. 2 The objectives of the project were quite comprehensive, they included the following goals: (a) Document all languages and dialects spoken natively in Kenya; (b) Describe their geographical distribution; (c) Define the relationship among the languages. (d) Search for appropriate models to account for dialect continua; (e) Describe the sociolinguistic situation of Kenya; (f) Describe the knowledge and use of the two main second languages, Swahili and English, and their role in national communication; (g) Document all endangered languages. Research techniques were based on 1 I wish to express my gratitude to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Society), which sponsored both projects.