Afroasiatic (Afro-Asiatic), also known as Afrasian or Hamito-Semitic, Semito-Hamitic, or Erythraean, is a large language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel. With the exception of Semitic, all branches of the Afroаsiatic family are spoken exclusively on the African continent.
The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cameroon. The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland Eastern West Africa.
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 the 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, Saho, and Sidama.
The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia. The Ge'ez 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 Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region is a regional state in southwestern Ethiopia. It was formed from the merger of five kililoch, called Regions 7 to 11, following the regional council elections on 21 June 1992. Its government is based in Hawassa.
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, or 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.
The Kadu languages, also known as Kadugli–Krongo or Tumtum, are a small language family of the Kordofanian geographic grouping, once included in Niger–Congo. However, since Thilo Schadeberg (1981), Kadu is widely seen as Nilo-Saharan. Evidence for a Niger-Congo affiliation is rejected, and a Nilo-Saharan relationship is controversial. A conservative classification would treat the Kadu languages as an independent family.
The languages of Ethiopia include the official languages of Ethiopia, its national and regional languages, a large number of minority languages, as well as foreign languages.
Wolaitta is a North Omotic language of the Ometo group spoken in the Wolayita Zone and some other parts of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region of Ethiopia. It is the native language of the Welayta people. The estimates of the population vary greatly because it is not agreed where the boundaries of the language are.
The Welayta, Wolayta or Wolaitta are an ethnic group and its former kingdom, located in southern Ethiopia. According to the most recent estimate (2017), the people of Wolayta numbered 5.83 million in Welayta Zone. The language of the Wolayta people, similarly called Wolaytta, belongs to the Omotic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Despite their small population, Wolayta people have widely influenced national music, dance and cuisine in Ethiopia.
Marvin Lionel Bender was an American linguist.
Karo is a South Omotic language spoken in the Debub (South) Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region in Ethiopia. Karo is described as being closely related to its neighbor, Hamer-Banna, with a lexical similarity of 81%, and is considered a dialect of Hamer by Blench (2006), but as a separate language belonging to the Hamer-Karo subfamily in Glottolog. The Karo people, who live close to the lower Omo River, use colorful bodywork, complex headdresses and body scars to express beauty and importance within the community. 2,400 speakers are using the Karo language.
The Aroid or Ari-Banna languages possibly belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and are spoken in Ethiopia.
Basketo is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in the Basketo special woreda of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, which is part of Ethiopia. The speakers refer to the language as "Masketo", while their neighbors refer to it as "Basketo." It has said to consist of two dialects, "Doko" (Dokko) and "Dollo" (Dollo). Besides their mother tongue, some also speak Melo, Oyda, Galila, or Gofa.
Dorze is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in the Gamo Gofa Zone of Ethiopia. Alemayehu Abebe reports that while performing preliminary fieldwork in 1992, he found 14 kebeles in Chencha woreda with Dorze speakers.
Gamo-Gofa-Dawro is an Omotic language of the Afroasiatic family spoken in the Dawro, Gamo Gofa and Wolayita Zones of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region in Ethiopia. Varieties are spoken by the Gamo, Gofa, Dawro; Blench (2006) and Ethnologue treat these as separate languages. Zala presumably belongs here as well. Dialects of Dawro (Kullo-Konta) are Konta and Kucha. In 1992, Alemayehu Abebe collected a word-list of 322 entries for all three related dialects.
Kachama-Ganjule is an Afroasiatic language spoken in Ethiopia on islands in Lake Chamo and Lake Abaya. Kachama is spoken on Gidicho island in Lake Abaya, whereas Ganjule was originally spoken on a small island in Lake Chamo. Now the Ganjule speakers have relocated to the west shore of the Lake. There still are about 1,000 monolinguals in this language.
The Afroasiatic Urheimat is the hypothetical place where speakers of the proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. This speech area is known as the Urheimat. Afroasiatic languages are today distributed in parts of Africa and Western Asia.
Azeb Amha is a linguist working on the morphology and syntax of Afroasiatic languages, with a special focus on Omotic languages. A senior researcher at the African Studies Center Leiden, Amha is co-editor of the international Journal of African Languages and Linguistics and member of the board of the Dutch Society for African Studies (NVAS).
