Sebat Bet Gurage language

Sebat Bet Gurage
ሰባት ቤት ጉራጌ‎ (Səbat Bet Gurage)
Native to	Ethiopia
Region	West Gurage Zone
Ethnicity	3.2 million Gurage (2022) [1]
Native speakers	2.5 million (2022) [1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic South Semitic Ethiopic South Outer West Gurage Sebat Bet Gurage
Dialects	Chaha Ezha Gumer Endegegn Gyeto Muher Enemor
Writing system	Geʽez script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sgw
Glottolog	seba1251

Sebat Bet ("Seven houses") is an Ethio-Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in Ethiopia.

Overview

One of the Gurage languages, Sebat Bet is divided into several dialects. ^[2] The latter are spoken in the western Gurage Region:

• Chaha (Cheha) is spoken in Cheha and is the best studied of these varieties
• Mesqan is spoken in Meskan
• Ezha (Eza, Izha) is spoken in Ezhana Wolene
• Muher is spoken in the mountains north of Cheha and Ezhana Wolene
• Geta is spoken in Geta
• Gumer (Gwemarra, Gʷəmarə), spoken in Gumer
• Inor (Ennemor), spoken in Enemorina Eaner

• Endegegn and the extinct Mesmes language are sometimes considered subdialects of Inor.

Notes

1. Sebat Bet Gurage at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
2. "Glottolog 5.0 - Sebat Bet Gurage". glottolog.org. Retrieved 2024-08-17.

Further reading

• Leslau, Wolf. 1997. "Chaha (Gurage) Phonology" in Kaye, Alan S. (ed.): Phonologies of Asia and Africa 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 373–397.
• Rose, Sharon. 2007. "Chaha (Gurage) Morphology" in Kaye, Alan D. (ed.): Morphologies of Africa and Asia 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 403–427.

External links

• World Atlas of Language Structures information on Chaha