Argobba (language)
| Argobba | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Ethiopia | |
| speaker | 43,700 (2010 census) | |
| Linguistic classification |
||
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
sem (other Semitic languages) |
|
| ISO 639-3 |
agj |
|
Argobba ( aʕargobba ʔaf ) is an Ethiosemitic language and, together with Amharic, forms a group (AA group of the Transversal South Ethiosemitic) within the South Ethiosemitic languages.
Geographical distribution
Argobba is only spoken by a few thousand people in some enclaves along the African Rift Valley in the Ethiopian regions of northeast Shewa and southeast Wollo . The speakers of the Argobba are members of the Argobba ethnic group . However, in most areas in recent decades the Argobba have given up their language in favor of Amharic or Oromo . Hence, there are more ethnic Argobba than speakers of the Argobba language.
Dialects
Although it was believed for a while that Argobba was actually a dialect of Amharic, it is now classified as a separate language that has multiple dialects of its own. The two well-known dialects are spoken in two unrelated areas and are not mutually understandable. One dialect is spoken around Aliyu Amba in northeast Shewa and the other dialect in the two villages of Shonke and T'ollaha in southeast Wollo .
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Palato-alveolar Palatal |
Velar | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | unvoiced | p | t | k | ʕ * | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | G | ||||
| Ejectives | tʼ | k ' | |||||
| Affricates | unvoiced | ʧ | |||||
| voiced | ʤ | ||||||
| Ejectives | ʧʼ | ||||||
| Fricatives | unvoiced | f | s | ʃ | ħ * | H | |
| voiced | z | ||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Liquid | w | l | j | ||||
| Flaps | r | ||||||
The pharyngeal consonants (marked with *) only exist in the dialect of Shonke.
Vowels
| Front tongue vowel | Central vowel | Back vowel | |
|---|---|---|---|
| closed | i | ɨ | u |
| medium | e | ə | O |
| open | a |
literature
- Wolf Leslau: Ethiopic Documents: Argobba. Grammar and dictionary . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-447-03955-8 .
- Andreas Wetter: The Argobba of T'ollaha - a comparative overview . In: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Proceedings of the XVth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Hamburg July 20-25, 2003 . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 899-907, ISBN 3-447-04799-2 .
Web links
- Report at Ethnologue