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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.
Afar is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken by the Afar people inhabiting Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Beja is an Afroasiatic language of the Cushitic branch spoken on the western coast of the Red Sea by the Beja people. Its speakers inhabit parts of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea. In 2022 there were 2,550,000 Beja speakers in Sudan, and 121,000 Beja speakers in Eritrea according to Ethnologue. As of 2023 there are an estimated 88,000 Beja speakers in Egypt. The total number of speakers in all three countries is 2,759,000.
Ongota is a moribund language of southwest Ethiopia. UNESCO reported in 2012 that out of a total ethnic population of 115, only 12 elderly native speakers remained, the rest of their small village on the west bank of the Weito River having adopted the Tsamai language instead. The default word order is subject–object–verb. The classification of the language is obscure.
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.
Lowland East Cushitic is a group of roughly two dozen diverse languages of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Its largest representatives are Oromo and Somali.
The South Cushitic or Rift languages of Tanzania are a branch of the Cushitic languages. The most numerous is Iraqw, with one million speakers. Scholars believe that these languages were spoken by Southern Cushitic agro-pastoralists from Ethiopia, who began migrating southward into the Great Rift Valley in the third millennium BC.
Dahalo is an endangered Cushitic language spoken by around 500–600 Dahalo people on the coast of Kenya, near the mouth of the Tana River. Dahalo is unusual among the world's languages in using all four airstream mechanisms found in human language: clicks, implosives, ejectives, and pulmonic consonants.
Yaaku is a moribund Afroasiatic language of the Cushitic branch, spoken in Kenya. Speakers are all older adults.
Sidama or Sidaamu Afoo is an Afro-Asiatic language belonging to the Highland East Cushitic branch of the Cushitic family. It is spoken in parts of southern Ethiopia by the Sidama people, particularly in the densely populated Sidama National Regional State (SNRS). Sidaamu Afoo is the ethnic autonym for the language, while Sidaminya is its name in Amharic. It is not known to have any specific dialects. The word order is typically SOV. Sidaama has over 100,000 L2 speakers. The literacy rate for L1 speakers is 1%-5%, while for L2 speakers it is 20%. In terms of its writing, Sidaama used an Ethiopic script up until 1993, from which point forward it has used a Latin script.
The languages of Ethiopia include the official languages of Ethiopia, its national and regional languages, and a large number of minority languages, as well as foreign languages.
The Awngi language, in older publications also called Awiya, is a endangered indigenous Central Cushitic language spoken by the Awi people, traditionally living in Central Gojjam in northwestern Ethiopia.
Highland East Cushitic or Burji-Sidamo is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in south-central Ethiopia. They are often grouped with Lowland East Cushitic, Dullay, and Yaaku as East Cushitic. The most populous language is Sidama, with close to two million speakers.
Aweer (Aweera), also known as Boni, is a Cushitic language of Eastern Kenya. The Aweer people, known by the arguably derogatory exonym Boni, are historically a hunter-gatherer people, traditionally subsisting on hunting, gathering, and collecting honey. Their ancestral lands range along the Kenyan coast from the Lamu and Ijara Districts into Southern Somalia's Badaade District.
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.
The Omo–Tana languages are a branch of the Cushitic family and are spoken in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya. The largest member is Somali. There is some debate as to whether the Omo–Tana languages form a single group, or whether they are individual branches of Lowland East Cushitic. Blench (2006) restricts the name to the Western Omo–Tana languages, and calls the others Macro-Somali.
Maʼa is a Bantu language of Tanzania.
The Arbore are an ethnic group living in southern Ethiopia, near Lake Chew Bahir. The Arbore people are pastoralists. With a total population of 6,850, the Abore population is divided into four villages, named: Gandareb, Kulaama, Murale, and Eegude.
Cushitic-speaking peoples are the ethnolinguistic groups who speak Cushitic languages natively. Today, the Cushitic languages are spoken as a mother tongue primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north and south in Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Proto-Cushitic is the reconstructed proto-language common ancestor of the Cushitic language family. Its words and roots are not directly attested in any written works, but have been reconstructed through the comparative method, which finds regular similarities between languages not explained by coincidence or word-borrowing, and extrapolates ancient forms from these similarities.
References
- 1 2 Appleyard, David (2012). "Cushitic". In Edzard, Lutz (ed.). Semitic and Afroasiatic: Challenges and Opportunities. Porta Linguarum Orientalium. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 199–295.
- 1 2 Tosco, Mauro (2020). "East Cushitic". In Vossen, Rainer; Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 290–299.
- 1 2 Mous, Maarten (2012). "Cushitic". In Frajzyngier, Zygmunt; Shay, Erin (eds.). The Afroasiatic Languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 342–422.
- ↑ Hetzron, Robert (1980). "The Limits of Cushitic". Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika (2): 7–126.
- ↑ Moreno, M. M. (1940). Manuale di sidamo. Grammatiche e lessici delle lingue dell'Africa italiano. Milan: Mondadori.
- 1 2 Tosco, Mauro (2000). "Cushitic Overview". Journal of Ethiopian Studies. 33 (2): 87–121.
- ↑ Bender, M. Lionel (2019). Grover Hudson (ed.). Cushitic Lexicon and Phonology. Schriften zur Afrikanistik – Research in African Studies. Vol. 28. Berlin: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-60089-4.
- ↑ Kießling, Roland; Mous, Maarten (2003). The Lexical Reconstruction of West-Rift Southern Cushitic. Cushitic Language Studies. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- 1 2 Appleyard, David L. (1996). "The Position of Agaw within Cushitic". In Zemánek, Petr (ed.). Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. Memorial Volume of Karel Petráček. Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Oriental Institute. pp. 1–14.
- ↑ Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1979). "The Consonant Phonemes of Proto-East-Cushitic (PEC): A First Approximation". Afroasiatic Linguistics. 7 (1): 1–67.