Afar (language)

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Afar

Spoken in

Ethiopia , Eritrea and Djibouti
speaker 1.4-1.6 million
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in Flag of the Afar Region.svg Afar Region , Ethiopia (regional working language)EthiopiaEthiopia 
Recognized minority /
regional language in 		EritreaEritrea Eritrea (national language) Djibouti (in Islamic and common law courts; little use as the language of instruction)
DjiboutiDjibouti 
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

aa

ISO 639 -2

aar

ISO 639-3

aar

Afar (own name Qafar-áf or ʿAfar-áf ) is a language from the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asian language family , which is spoken by around one and a half million people from the Afar people in Ethiopia , Eritrea and Djibouti .

The Afar is closely related to the Saho . In the northern part of the Afar area there are contacts to the Saho , and mixed marriages and the spatial proximity lead to mutual influence of these languages, so that sometimes “Afar-Saho” is used as a single language. However, this does not correspond to the linguistic reality and the self-image of the speakers.

Afar has a word order of the form subject-object-verb. The emphasis is different, for example between áwka ("boy") and awká ("girl").

Literacy

The language has always been passed on orally, including extensive poetry. There is very little printed material on Afar. The literacy level of the Afar speakers is very low with one percent in their mother tongue and three percent in a second language (mostly Arabic ).

Linguists strive to standardize the language in order to promote its writing and the literacy of its speakers. Such efforts are supported by the Institut des Langues de Djibouti , the Ministry of Education of Eritrea and the Afar Language Studies & Enrichment Center in Ethiopia. As early as 1976, the two Afar Ḥámad ʿAbdallah Ḥámad Dimis and ʿAbdulkāder Maḥámmed Rēdó had developed an Afar orthography for the Latin alphabet, which has since been used for official purposes, for newspapers and private letters.

use

In the Afar region of Ethiopia, Afar is sometimes used as the language of instruction in the few schools, but the working language in the region was initially Amharic . In 2010 the website of the Ethiopian parliament named Afar as the regional working language. There has been an Afar program on Ethiopian television since 2008.

In Eritrea, Afar is officially recognized alongside eight other “national languages”, but de facto mainly Tigrinya and Arabic are used for official purposes. There are broadcasts on Afar on the national radio station and a translation of the Constitution. As the language of the Afar prefer instead of Afar often Arabic, as a second or lingua franca is widespread.

In Djibouti, French is gaining in importance as it is the official language and is used accordingly in schools. The official language and education policy pursues the goal of teaching in French as well as Somali and Afar - the mother tongues of most Djiboutians - and in Arabic, but in fact French is almost the only language of education. The French language has also influenced the Afar spoken in Djibouti. The national radio broadcasts in all four languages. In Islamic ( Sharia ) and common law courts, which exist alongside the judiciary based on the French model, Arabic, Somali and Afar are mainly used.

phonetics

  labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Pharyngeal Glottal
Plosive unvoiced   t   [t]     k  [k]    
voiced b  [b] d  [d] x  [ɖ]   g  [ɡ]    
Fricative unvoiced f  [f] s  [s]       c  [ħ] h  [h]
voiced           q  [ʕ]  
nasal m  [m] n  [n]          
Approximant w  [w] l  [l]   y  [j]      
Tap   r  [ɾ]        

Vowels

Latin alphabet

A , B , C , D , E , F , G , H , I , J , K , L , M , N , O , P , Q , R , S , T , U , V , W , X , Y , Z
a, ba, ca, da, e, fa, ga, ha, i, yes, ka, la, ma, na, o, pa, qa, ra, sa, ta, u, va, wa, ya, za

Examples

Afar German
aagimiyya to ignore
yalla God
aaliyya to have
baabur automobile
Baal Ostrich feathers
yoo I
baada world
haffoyta a wave
bada sea
gili thumb
gita path
xiba scar
xiiba sermon
laaqo east
boodo hole
gasu buffalo
wakri Fox
yangula hyena
goroyya ostrich
boolu hundred
uli no
well we
buuku book

literature

  • Didier Morin: Poésie traditional des Afars (= Société d'études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France. 364 = Langues et cultures africaines. 21). Peeters Publishers, Paris 1997, ISBN 90-6831-989-2 (French).

Web links

  • afaraf.free.fr - Afar learning website with texts, alphabet, dictionary and grammar (French)
Wiktionary: Afar language  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Test Wikipedia on Afar

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The State of Afar . ( Memento of September 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) ethiopar.net, The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (English)
  2. ^ A b c Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle: Les langues en Erythrée . In: Chroniques Yeménites , 8, 2000 (French)
  3. ↑ The two spellings result from the different implementations of the voiced pharyngeal fricative .
  4. ↑ a b Didier Morin: ʿAfar language . In: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica . Volume 1. 2003, ISBN 3-447-04746-1
  5. ^ A b Development of the Afar Language . ( Memento from March 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 13 kB) Afar Friends in Sweden (English)
  6. ↑ Afar at Ethnologue (English)
  7. ↑ Interview with Afar president. In: IRIN News, May 24, 2002 (English)
  8. ^ Afar Regional State. (No longer available online.) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, archived from the original October 7, 2007 ; accessed on April 7, 2014 (English).
  9. ↑ Didier Morin: Dictionnaire historique afar (1288-1982) . Karthala Editions 2004, ISBN 978-2-84586-492-4 (French), foreword
  10. ↑ Jacques Leclerc, Trésor de la langue française au Québec (TLFQ): Politique linguistique en Djibouti
  11. ↑ Berraka . Qafaraf. Archived from the original on August 11, 2015. Retrieved on August 20, 2019.