Dullay languages

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The Dullay languages are a group of closely related languages ​​spoken by various ethnic groups in the region of the southern nations, nationalities, and peoples of southwest Ethiopia . These include the individual languages Tsamay (Ts'amakko), Bussa (Dobaze) and Gawwada (with different dialects). Some of them are also viewed as a dialect continuum .

The Dullay languages ​​belong to the Cushitic languages , a branch of the Afro-Asian language family . They are often classified as East Cushitic languages together with the highland and lowland East Cushitic languages and yaaku . Here they should be closest to the yaaku.

The speakers of the Dullay languages ​​do not consider themselves a single group and do not have a name that encompasses them all. Dullay is the name Dullay-speaking groups use for the river, officially called Weyt'o in Amharic , on which they live. Other terms introduced by linguists for this language group are Werizoid (after the former administrative name of the area) or Qawko (after the word for "human" in the Dullay languages).

In Ethiopia, all Dullay-speaking groups with the exception of the Tsamay are referred to as “ Gawwada ” and are recorded accordingly in censuses. In the 2007 census, 68,600 Gawwada and 20,046 Tsamay were counted.

literature

  • Hermann Amborn , Gunter Minker, Hans-Jürgen Sasse: The Dullay. Materials on an East Cushitic language group , Cologne Contributions to African Studies 6, 1980, ISBN 978-3-496-00105-8
  • Mauro Tosco: Gawwada Morphology , in: Alan S. Kaye (Ed.): Morphologies of Asia and Africa , 2007, ISBN 978-1-57506-109-2