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The Afroasiatic languages, also known as Hamito-Semitic or Semito-Hamitic, are a language family of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic branch.
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 number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families, among which the largest are:
Afar is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken by the Afar people inhabiting Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Somali is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken as a mother tongue by Somalis in Greater Somalia and the Somali diaspora. Somali is an official language in Somalia and Ethiopia, and a national language in Djibouti as well as in northeastern Kenya. The Somali language is written officially with the Latin alphabet although the Arabic alphabet and several Somali scripts like Osmanya, Kaddare and the Borama script are informally used.
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 South Cushitic or Rift languages of Tanzania are a branch of the Cushitic languages. The most numerous is Iraqw, with half a 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.
Yaaku is an endangered Afroasiatic language of the Cushitic branch, spoken in Kenya. Speakers are all older adults.
The Saho are a Cushitic ethnic group who inhabit large sections of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. They speak Saho as a mother tongue.
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 main languages spoken in Eritrea are Tigrinya, Tigre, Kunama, Bilen, Nara, Saho, Afar, and Beja. The country's working languages are Tigrinya, Arabic, English.
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, but that group is not well defined. The most populous language is Sidama, with close to two million speakers.
The Saho–Afar languages are a dialect-cluster belonging to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. They include the Afar and Saho languages, which are spoken in Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
The (Western) Omo–Tana or Arboroid languages belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and are spoken in Ethiopia and Kenya.
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.
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.
Maʼa is a Bantu language of Tanzania.
The Arbore are a 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, 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
- ↑ Richard Hayward, "Afroasiatic", in Heine & Nurse, 2000, African Languages
- 1 2 Tosco, Mauro. 2020. East Cushitic. In: Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. The Oxford Handbook of African Languages, 290–299. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ↑ Bender, M. Lionel. (2020). Cushitic Lexicon and Phonology. ed. Grover Hudson. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik / Research in African Studies, 28). Berlin: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-60089-4
- ↑ Robert Hetzron, "The Limits of Cushitic", Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 2. 1980, 7–126.
- Roland Kießling & Maarten Mous. 2003. The Lexical Reconstruction of West-Rift Southern Cushitic. Cushitic Language Studies Volume 21
- Tosco, Mauro. 2000. 'Cushitic Overview.' Journal of Ethiopian Studies 33(2):87–121.
- Savà, Graziano and Mauro Tosco. 2003. "The classification of Ongota". In Bender et al. eds, Selected comparative-historical Afrasian linguistic studies. LINCOM Europa.