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The Omotic languages are a traditionally recognized but disputed grouping of languages spoken mainly in southwestern Ethiopia, around the Omo River region, and in parts of southeastern Sudan (Blue Nile State). This classification conventionally includes the Damotic (North Omotic), Dizoid (Majoid), Mao and Aroid (South Omotic) languages.
They are generally classified within the Afroasiatic family, though the internal coherence of Omotic as a linguistic unit is questioned by some linguists. For example, Güldemann[2] treats North Omotic and Dizoid as Afroasiatic, but considers Mao and Aroid to be separate language groups outside Afroasiatic, influenced by contact with North Omotic.
Classification
The Omotic languages are generally considered the most divergent branch of the Afroasiaticlanguages, but both their internal unity and their Afroasiatic affiliation are debated. Early classifications up to Greenberg (1963) placed them within Cushitic as “West Cushitic.” Fleming (1969) argued instead that Omotic should be considered an independent branch of Afroasiatic, a view largely accepted after Bender (1971)[3], although some scholars still support the West Cushitic position[4][5] or propose that only part of Omotic is independent, with North Omotic remaining Cushitic. Blench notes that Omotic shares honey-related vocabulary with Cushitic but not cattle-related terms, suggesting a very early split, possibly before the spread of pastoralism[6].
The main groups usually distinguished are Damotic (North Omotic), Dizoid (Maji), Mao, and Aroid (Ari-Banna or South Omotic). Damotic and Dizoid are generally considered the strongest candidates for Afroasiatic affiliation, though they are very distantly related to other branches such as Semitic and Cushitic and still require further research.
The Mao languages, spoken on the Sudan–Ethiopian border, are poorly documented and show strong influence from Koman languages. Because of this and the lack of basic descriptive work, their genealogical affiliation remains unclear.
The Aroid languages are the most controversial. Their external classification has long been disputed, with proposals linking them to Nilo-Saharanlanguages. At the same time, scholars acknowledge heavy contact influence from neighboring Nilo-Saharan (Surmic and Nilotic) languages and from Afroasiatic languages, including Damotic, Dizoid, and Cushitic. Güldemann (2018) stresses that existing proposals do not adequately distinguish inherited features from areal effects, making it impossible to reach firm conclusions. As a result, Aroid is often treated as a possibly isolated family with no established higher-level affiliation.
Because of these issues, some linguists, including Güldemann, classify only Damotic and Dizoid as Afroasiatic, while treating Mao and Aroid as separate groups outside Afroasiatic that have been strongly shaped by contact.[2]
The Omotic languages have on average slightly less than thirty consonantphonemes, which is a comparatively high number, but is also found in other primary branches of Afro-Asiatic. Commonly used are bilabial, alveolar, velar and glottal plosive, various fricative, alveolar affricates and /w/, /j/, /l/, /r/, /m/, /n/. What is typical for the non-glottal plosives is that they are each represented by a voiced, a voiceless, and an ejective phoneme; All three types can also be found in fricatives and affricates. Most Omotic languages have additional consonants. Examples of this are the Implosive in South Omotic (/ɓ/, /ɗ/, /ɠ/) and the Retroflex of the Bench. In some cases, consonants can also occur geminated. Representatives of the Nordomotic and Mao have five to six vowel phonemes, the quantity is partly a difference in meaning; In contrast, much more extensive vowel systems are typical for South Omotic.
All Omotic languages for which sufficient data is available are tonal languages, which usually only distinguish two tones (high and low), some languages have more tones: Dizi distinguishes three, Bench six. Certain Omotic languages such as Aari and Ganza (Mao) have tonal accent systems in which each independent word has exactly one high tone, whereas in most languages the tones are freely distributed.
Morphology
Nouns
The Omotic languages distinguish between the nominal categories number, case,[9] and definiteness. These categories are marked by different suffixes, which can be fusional or analytic depending on the language. The two genders in all omotic languages for which sufficient data are available are masculine and feminine; they essentially correspond to natural gender. The case system distinguishes the omotic languages as accusative languages; other cases form various adverbial determinations. A number of omotic languages have an absolutive case, which marks the citation form and the direct object (examples from Wolaita):[10]
A typological peculiarity, which is also isolated within Omotic, is the person and gender dependency of the nominative in Bench (either -i˧ or -a˧, depending on the person):
a˦tsin˦-a˧ “a woman” (3rd person sg. femininum)[12]
In most languages, the singular is unmarked, while the plural has its own suffix. It is possible that plural suffixes in some languages arose from a partitive construction. This is supported by the length of certain plural suffixes, formal relationships to the genitive singular and the fact that the determining suffix sometimes comes before the plural suffix, which is typologically unusual:[14][15]
Dizi kìan-à-kʾankàs dog+det.+plural “the dogs”[16]
The personal pronouns distinguish similar categories to the nouns in most omotic languages; However, the genera are usually only marked in the 3rd person singular. The personal pronouns usually have their own stem for each number-person-gender combination, to which case suffixes are then added, which are the same for all persons. Some of the pronouns show similarities with other Afro-Asian language families and can therefore be traced back to Proto-Afro-Asiatic; Certain South Omotic personal pronouns can be explained as borrowings from the neighboring Nilo-Saharan:[18]
The case endings of the personal pronouns and the nouns are usually identical:
Aari: Accusative -m: yé-m "you", fatir-in-ám "the corn"
Possessive pronouns in particular have their own forms:
Aari: yé "yours," ʔéed-te "a man's"
Reconstruction
Bender (1987: 33–35)[20] reconstructs the following proto-forms for Proto-Omotic and Proto-North Omotic, the latter which is considered to have descended from Proto-Omotic.
English gloss
Proto- Omotic
Proto-North Omotic
ashes
*bend
bird
*kaf
bite
*sats’
breast
*t’iam
claw
*ts’ugum
die
*hayk’
dog
*kan
egg
*ɓul
fire
*tam
grass
*maata
hand
*kuc
head
*to-
hear
*si-
mouth
*non-
nose
*si(n)t’
root
*ts’ab-
snake
*šooš
stand (vb.)
*yek’
this
*kʰan-
thou (2.SG)
*ne(n)
water
*haats’
we (1.PL)
*nu(n)
ye (2.PL)
*int-
green
*c’il-
house
*kyet
left
*hadr-
elephant
*daŋgVr
sister, mother
*ind
armpit
*šoɓ-
boat
*gong-
grave
*duuk
vomit
*c’oš-
Comparative vocabulary
Sample basic vocabulary of 40 Omotic languages from Blažek (2008):[21]
12Güldemann, Tom (2018). "Historical linguistics and genealogical language classification in Africa". In Güldemann, Tom (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of Africa. The World of Linguistics series. Vol.11. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp.58–444. doi:10.1515/9783110421668-002. ISBN978-3-11-042606-9. S2CID133888593.
↑Mammo Girma: Yemsa Verb Morphology. Some Inflections and Derivations. 1986, quoted from Bender 2000, p.120; Clay marking according to the different forms in Lamberti 1993, p.190
12Mary J. Breeze: Personal Pronouns in Gimira (Benchnon). In: Ursula Wiesemann (Ed.): Pronominal Systems. Narr, Tübingen 1986, ISBN 3-87808-335-1, pp. 47–70, p. 53.
12Bender, Lionel M. 1987. "First Steps Toward proto-Omotic." Current Approaches to African Linguistics 3 (1987): 21–36.
↑Blažek, Václav. 2008. A lexicostatistical comparison of Omotic languages. In Bengtson (ed.), 57–148.
↑Aklilu, Yilma. 2003. Comparative phonology of the Maji languages. Journal of Ethiopian studies 36: 59–88.
Sources cited
Bender, M. Lionel (2000). Comparative Morphology of the Omotic Languages. Munich: LINCOM.
Blench, Roger (2006). Archaeology, Language, and the African Past. Oxford: AltaMira Press. ISBN9780759104662.
Fleming, Harold (1976). "Omotic overview". In Bender, M. Lionel (ed.). The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University. pp.299–323.
Hayward, Richard J., ed. (1990). Omotic Language Studies. London: School of Oriental and African Studies.
Hayward, Richard J. (2003). "Omotic: the 'empty quarter' of Afroasiatic linguistics". In Jacqueline Lecarme (ed.). Research in Afroasiatic Grammar II: selected papers from the fifth conference on Afroasiatic languages, Paris 2000. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp.241–261. doi:10.1075/cilt.241.13hay.
Newman, Paul (1980). The classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic. Universitaire Pers Leiden.
Lamberti, Marcello (1991). "Cushitic and its Classifications". Anthropos. 86 (4/6): 552–561.
Lamberti, Marcello (1993). Materialien zum Yemsa. Studi Linguarum Africae Orientalis, Band 5. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. ISBN3-8253-0103-6.
General Omotic bibliography
Bender, M. L. 1975. Omotic: a new Afroasiatic language family. (University Museum Series, 3.) Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.
Zaborski, Andrzej. 1986. Can Omotic be reclassified as West Cushitic? In Gideon Goldenberg, ed., Ethiopian Studies: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference pp.525–530. Rotterdam: Balkema.
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