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The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, and Sidama.
The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Geʽez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have complex tonal systems. The languages have around 6.2 million speakers. The group is generally classified as belonging to the Afroasiatic language family, but this is disputed by some.
The Saho language is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. It belongs to the family's Cushitic branch.
The Agaw or Central Cushitic languages are Afro-Asiatic languages spoken by several groups in Ethiopia and, in one case, Eritrea. They form the main substratum influence on Amharic and other Ethiopian Semitic languages.
Lower Nubia is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, and all its modern population, were relocated as part of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia; Qasr Ibrim is the only major archaeological site which was neither relocated nor submerged. The intensive archaeological work conducted prior to the flooding means that the history of the area is much better known than that of Upper Nubia. According to David Wengrow, the A-Group Nubian polity of the late 4th millenninum BCE is poorly understood since most of the archaeological remains are submerged underneath Lake Nasser.
Bussa, or Mossiya, is a Cushitic language spoken in the Dirashe special woreda of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region located in southern Ethiopia. The people themselves, numbering 18,000 according to the 2007 census, call their language Mossittaata.
The Modern South Arabian languages (MSALs), also known as Eastern South Semitic languages, are a group of endangered languages spoken by small populations inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen and Oman, and Socotra Island. Together with the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, the Western branch, they form the South Semitic sub-branch of the Afroasiatic language family's Semitic branch.
Kambaata people also spelt as Kambata or Kembata are a Cushitic ethnic group that inhabit the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. They speak the Kambaata language, It was a province of Ethiopia beginning in the early 15th century through to the mid-17th century; Ethiopian rule was once again established in the late 19th century under Emperor Menelik II. During this first period, Kambaata province was largely Christianized. The former province is contained within the contemporary Kembata Tembaro Zone of SNNPR.
The Rangi are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group of mixed Bantu and Cushitic heritage in the Dodoma Region of central Tanzania. In 2022, the Rangi population was estimated to number 880,000.
The Alagwa are a Cushitic ethnic group mostly based in the Kondoa District of the Dodoma Region in central Tanzania, an area well known for rock art. Smaller numbers of Alagwa reside in the Hanang district of the Manyara Region in Tanzania, as well. They speak the Alagwa language as a mother tongue, which belongs to the South Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. In 2022, the Alagwa population was estimated to number 52,816 individuals, and Mous (2016) estimates the number of speakers to be slightly over 10,000.
The Burunge or Burungi are a Cushitic ethnic group and among Iraqhw Communities based in the Chemba District of Dodoma Region in central Tanzania. They speak the Burunge language as a mother tongue, which belongs to the South Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. In 2002, the Burunge population was estimated at 13,000 individuals.
El Molo is an extinct language belonging to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. It was spoken by the El Molo people on the southeastern shore of Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya. Alternate names to El Molo are Dehes, Elmolo, Fura-Pawa, and Ldes. It was thought to be extinct in the middle part of the 20th century, but a few speakers were found in the later 20th century. However, it may now be truly extinct, as the eight speakers found in a survey published in 1994 were over 50. Most of the El Molo population have shifted to the neighboring Samburu language. El Molo also has no known dialects but it is similar to Daasanach.
The Aroid or Ari-Banna languages possibly belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and are spoken in Ethiopia.
The Somali languages form a group that are part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. They are spoken as a mother tongue by ethnic Somalis in Horn of Africa and the Somali diaspora. Even with linguistic differences, Somalis collectively view themselves as speaking dialects of a common language.
Jiiddu is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Jiiddu sub-clan of the Dir, a Somali clan inhabiting southern Somalia. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch, and has an estimated 33,000 speakers mainly residing in the Lower Shabeelle, Bay and Middle Jubba regions.
Hozo is an Afroasiatic language spoken mostly in the Kondala woreda of Mirab Welega Zone by peoples generically known as "Mao". There are smaller groups of Hozo speakers in Mana Sibu woreda. The term Hozo is usually understood by the Mao to refer to a clan. Hozo speakers prefer to call themselves Amo. Hozo and Seze are sometimes called Begi Mao. Hozo is spoken by roughly 3,000 people in Ethiopia. Hozo is also a clan in the Begi area. The Hozo language is also known as Begi-Mao and Mao of Begi. Its classification is Afro-Asiatic, Omotic, and Mao. The word Mao is Omotic and means ‘man; people’, occurring as [ma:ɪ] in Seze and as [mɔ:] in Hozo. Mao is frequently used as an ethnic term. There is a kind of Mao identity across language differences in Ethiopia. While it is generally accepted today that Omotic is one of the primary branches of the Afro-Asiatic family, the position of the four languages Hozo, Seze, Ganza and Northern Mao is still being discussed. The Mao languages are the least documented within Omotic, and Omotic itself is the least documented of the Afroasiatic groups.
The Konso, also known as the Xonsita, are a Lowland East Cushitic-speaking ethnic group primarily inhabiting south-western Ethiopia.
Tanzania is a multilingual country. There are many languages spoken in the country, none of which is spoken natively by a majority or a large plurality of the population. Swahili and English, the latter of which was inherited from colonial rule, are widely spoken as lingua francas. They serve as working languages in the country, with Swahili being the official national language. There are more speakers of Swahili than of English in Tanzania.
The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic is a collection of ancient societies that appeared in the Rift Valley of East Africa and surrounding areas during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic. They were South Cushitic speaking pastoralists who tended to bury their dead in cairns, whilst their toolkit was characterized by stone bowls, pestles, grindstones and earthenware pots.
Cushitic-speaking peoples are the ethnolinguistic groups who speak Cushitic languages natively. Today, Cushitic languages are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north and south in Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania.
References
- 1 2 3 Burunge at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
- 1 2 Lamberti, M. (1991). Cushitic and its classifications. Anthropos, (H. 4./6), 552–561.
- ↑ "A Summary of the Cushite Peoples of Eastern Africa".
- ↑ Stegen, O. (2003, June). How does their language survive?. In talk presented at the meeting of the Language in Context Research Group, University of Edinburgh.
