| Sheko | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Ethiopia |
| Region | Bench Maji Zone, Kafa region |
Native speakers | 39,000 (2007 census) [1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | she |
| Glottolog | shek1245 |
| ELP | Sheko |
Sheko is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the area between Tepi and Mizan Teferi in western Ethiopia, in the Sheko district in the Bench Maji Zone. The 2007 census lists 38,911 speakers; the 1998 census listed 23,785 speakers, with 13,611 identified as monolinguals. [2]
Sheko, together with the Dizi and Nayi languages, is part of a cluster of languages variously called "Maji" or "Dizoid".
The language is notable for its retroflex consonants (Aklilu Yilma 1988), a striking feature shared with closely related Dizi and nearby (but not closely related) Bench (Breeze 1988).
Apart from the above-mentioned retroflex consonants, the phonology of Sheko is characterized by a total 28 consonant phonemes, [3] five long vowels and six short vowels, [4] plus four phonemic tone levels. [5]
Hellenthal (2010, p. 45) lists the following consonant phonemes of Sheko:
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Retroflex | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Ejective | pʼ | tʼ | kʼ | |||
| Voiceless | t | k | ʔ | ||||
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||
| Affricate | Ejective | tsʼ | tʃʼ | tʂʼ | |||
| Voiceless | ts | tʃ | tʂ | ||||
| Fricative | Voiceless | f | s | ʃ | ʂ | h | |
| Voiced | z | ʒ | ʐ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| tap | r [ɾ] | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
Unlike other Dizoid languages, Sheko has no contrast between /r/ and /l/. [6] Consonants are rarely geminated, [7] and there is a syllabic nasal /n̩/ [8]
Hellenthal (2010, p. 56) lists the following long and short vowels of Sheko: /i/, /ii/, /e/, /ee//ə/, /a/, /aa/, /u/, /uu/, /o/, /oo/.
Sheko is one of very few languages in Africa that have four distinct phonemic tone levels. [9] Tone distinguishes meaning both in the lexicon and in the grammar, particularly to distinguish persons in the pronominal system. [10]
Ethnologue lists the following morphosyntactic features: "SOV; postpositions; genitives, articles, adjectives, numerals, relatives after noun heads; question word initial; 1 prefix, 5 suffixes; word order distinguishes subjects, objects, indirect objects; affixes indicate case of noun phrases; verb affixes mark person, number, gender of subject; passives, causatives, comparatives."
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