Hadiyya language

Last updated
Hadiyya
Native to Ethiopia
Region Hadiya Zone of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region
Ethnicity Hadiya
Native speakers
1,300,000 (2007 census) [1]
Dialects
  • Hadiyya
  • Soro
  • Leemo
Latin, Ge’ez
Language codes
ISO 639-3 hdy
Glottolog hadi1240
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Hadiyya (speakers call it Hadiyyisa, others sometimes call it Hadiyigna, Adiya, Adea, Adiye, Hadia, Hadiya, Hadya) is the language of the Hadiya people of Ethiopia. Over 1.2 million people speak Hadiyya, making it one of the ten major languages in Ethiopia. It is a Highland East Cushitic language of the Afroasiatic family. Most speakers live in the Hadiya Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR). [2] The language has four recognized dialects—Leemo, Badawacho, Shashogo, and Sooro. These are mutually intelligible, with slight regional variations.

Contents

The closely related Libido language, located just to the north in the Mareko district of Gurage Zone, is very similar lexically, but has significant morphological differences. Historically oral, Hadiyya is now written using a Latin-based orthography, developed for educational and administrative use. Hadiyya has a set of complex consonant phonemes consisting of a glottal stop and a sonorant: /ʔr/,/ʔj/,/ʔw/,/ʔl/.

In their book (English version 1999), Braukämper and Mishago compiled a reasonably sized collection of the presently vanishing art of traditional songs of Hadiyya. The lyrics adhere to the strict rule of Hadiyya traditional poetry where rhythmical rhyming occurs at the beginning of the verse. [3]

The New Testament of the Christian Bible has been translated into Hadiyya, published by the Bible Society of Ethiopia in 1993. It was originally produced using the traditional Ethiopic syllabary. A later printing used the Latin alphabet.[ citation needed ]

Phonology

Consonants

The phonology of the Hadiyya language, part of the Highland East Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, is characterized by its unique consonantal and vowel systems, syllable structure, and morphophonemic processes. Hadiyya has 23 consonant phonemes categorized by place and manner of articulation: [4] [ page needed ]

Labial Dental/
Alveolar 		Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive/
Affricate 		voiceless t tʃ k ʔ
voiced b d dʒ g
ejective pʼ tʼ tʃʼ kʼ
Fricative voiceless f s ʃ h
voiced z
Nasal voiced m n
preglottalʔmʔn
Rhotic r
Approximant voiced w l j
preglottalʔl

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i iːu uː
Mid e eːo oː
Open a aː

Vowel System

Hadiyya has a set of five vowel phonemes: /a, e, i, o, u/. These vowels exhibit:

  • Phonemic vowel length: The length of vowels changes word meanings (e.g., short /a/ vs. long /aa/).
  • Distribution restrictions: Certain vowels co-occur only under specific conditions.

Pitch Accent

Hadiyya exhibits a pitch accent system, where pitch can distinguish lexical or grammatical meanings. This is a defining feature of Highland East Cushitic languages.

Orthography

The Hadiyya (Hadiyyisa) language alphabet [5]
LetterName
(IPA)		Example(s) [6]
A a[a]mato (one), Waa’aa (God)
B b[ba]baxo (work), lobakata (much, many)
C c[tʃ’a]maceesee (hear me), cawoomoo (I’ll be silent)
CH ch[tʃa]manchoo (man), heechaa (life)
D d[da]daddaraanchoo (merchant), danaamoo (good, beautiful)
E e[e]neesee (us), eranee (well, good)
F f[fa]hoffanee (small), fatakimaa or fatahimaa (to release)
G g[ga]gatisima (to save, to secure), gaga (self)
H h[ha]hasee (find it), halichoo (donkey)
I i[i]iihanee (mine), hinkid (how)
J j[dʒa]joraa (bad), jagara (small residence usually next to a bigger one)
K k[ka]ka (‘you’ for male), kuk (this)
L l[la]lelee (play), laroo (cows)
M m[ma]ma’ccee (ear), maree (go)
N n[na]nafaraa (meadow in front area), neesee (us)
NY ny[ɲa]adapted for loan words such as "sanyo" (monday) of Amharic
O o[o]meenticcoo (woman or the woman), woroon (below)
P p[pa]adapted for loan words such as "politics" from English, and "police" from Amharic/English. However, monolingual Hadiya actually change the sound to [ba] in their speech
PH ph[p’a]aphisee (hit it), ccoophaaroo’o (food – minsed meat/greens in butter & spices)
Q q[k’a]qoxaraa (strong), ha’qaa (wood)
R r[ra]hurbaata (food), woro’nee (in)
S s[sa]lasagee (later), so’oo (barley)
SH sh[ʃa]shokkiissoohanee (hot, burning), bashillaa (far)
T t[ta]diinatee (money or cattle), matayanoo (being busy)
TS ts[s’a]adapted for loan words such as ‘tsom’ (fasting) of Amharic
U u[u]Uulla (earth or one’s plot/plat), hundam (all of it)
V v[va]adapted for loan words such as ‘university’ of English
W w[wa]weeraa (cedar tree), wo’oo (water)
X x[t’a]wiximaa (seeding), iix (he)
Y y[ya]iiyyimaa (carrying), malayyee (strength, force)
Z z[za]zara (race or ethnic group)
ZH zh[ʒa]adapted for loan words such as ‘gezhii’ (governor) of Amharic
’ (no allograph)[ʔa]ki’aakka’a (rising), liira’imito’oo (they rejoiced)

Grammar[ citation needed ]

General features of the hadiyyan grammar

Word Order: Hadiyya follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word order.

Agglutinative Morphology: Words are built through the addition of suffixes and infixes, marking tense, aspect, case, number, and more.

Case Marking: Nouns and pronouns are marked for various cases, reflecting their grammatical roles in sentences.

Pitch Accent: Hadiyya employs a pitch accent system, where changes in pitch can distinguish word meanings or grammatical forms.

Nouns

Hadiyya has a detailed system for marking nouns, with about nine main cases: absolutive (the basic form), nominative, genitive, dative, ablative, locative, instrumental, comitative, and similative. The absolutive is used for subjects in simple sentences and objects when the subject performs an action. If a noun is definite, specific suffixes are added to show its role in the sentence, while indefinite nouns remain unmarked in some cases.

Hadiyya also uses postpositions (similar to prepositions in English) that combine with certain cases, like the genitive or dative, to express relationships like possession or location. Reflexive forms are common, where a suffix shows that a noun belongs to the subject of the sentence (e.g., "his own house").

Adjectives in Hadiyya usually match the nouns they describe in gender, number, and definiteness, but they don’t take case suffixes unless the noun is implied. Special suffixes are also used to create related nouns, such as ones that describe tools, doers of actions, or abstract ideas. This system makes Hadiyya a rich and expressive language, typical of its Highland East Cushitic family.

Pronouns

Hadiyya has a detailed system of pronouns that are essential for expressing relationships, ownership, and forming questions. Below is an overview of the key types of pronouns.

Personal pronouns in Hadiyya indicate the speaker, listener, or others. They are distinguished by person (first, second, third), number (singular or plural), and sometimes gender.

  • Examples:
    • First Person: ane (‘I’), neen (‘we’)
    • Second Person: att (‘you’ singular), ateen (‘you all’)
    • Third Person: isu (‘he’), isa (‘she’), isen (‘they’)

Possessive pronouns show ownership and are typically formed by adding possessive suffixes to nouns. They agree with the possessor in person and number.

  • Examples:
    • guri-ane (‘my house’)
    • guri-att (‘your house’)
    • guri-isen (‘their house’)

Verbs

Adjectives

Numerals - t'íga

Source: [7]

NNumber
1máto
2lámo
3sáso
4soóro
5ʔónto
6lóho
7lamára
8sadeénto
9hónso
10tómmo

When combining numerals, in Hadiyya from the numbers 11-99, you attach the base of the decade with the unit, using a structure that translates as “[decade] + [unit]”. For example:

21: Tommá máto ("20 and 1")

35: Sómmo ʔónto ("30 and 5")

48: Soóre sadeénto ("40 and 8")

NNumbers
10tommoó
20tommá
30sómmo
40soóre
50ʔónta
60lóhonta
70lamárta
80sadeénta
90hónsájje
100ʃíha

After 100, the speakers of Hadiyya combine the numeral of 100 with the decades and the units of the numerals before.

142: ʃíha sóore lámo ("100 and 40 and 2")

Notes

  1. ↑ Ethiopia 2007 Census
  2. ↑ Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2018. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Twenty-first edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
  3. ↑ Braukämper, Ulrich and Tilahun Mishago. 1999. Praise and Teasing: Narrative Songs of the Hadiyya in Southern Ethiopia. Frankfurt: Frobenius Institute. Page 116 has a good map of Hadiyya dialects and locations.
  4. ↑ Garkebo, Tadesse Sibamo (2014). Documentation and Description of Hadiyya (A Highland East Cushitic Language of Ethiopia). Addis Ababa University.
  5. ↑ Mazengia, Shimelis (2016). Mendisu, Binyam Sisay; Johannessen, Janne Bondi (eds.). "Some Observations on Hadiyyisa Orthography". Oslo Studies in Language. 8 (1, "Multilingual Ethiopia: Linguistic Challenges and Capacity Building Efforts"): 201–218. ISSN   1890-9639.
  6. ↑ Hadiyya (Hadiyyisa) Language Orthography – Alphabet and Writing. Retrieved February 12, 2022, from https://hadiyajourney.com/hadiyya-hadiyyisa-language-orthography-alphabet-and-writing/
  7. ↑ Garkebo, Tadesse Sibamo (2014). Documentation and Description of Hadiyya. Addis Ababa University. pp. 141–142.

References

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