Ethiopian Semitic (also Ethio-Semitic, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic or Abyssinian[1]) is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages, itself a sub-branch of Semitic, part of the Afroasiatic language family.

With 21,811,600 total speakers as of 2007, including around 4,000,000 second language speakers, Amharic is the most widely spoken language of Ethiopia and second-most commonly spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic).[2][3] Tigrinya has 7 million speakers and is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea.[4][5] There is a small population of Tigre speakers in Sudan, and it is the second-most spoken language in Eritrea. The Ge'ez language has a literary history in its own Ge'ez script going back to the first century AD. It is no longer spoken but remains the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, as well as their respective Eastern Catholic counterparts.

The "homeland" of the South Semitic languages is widely debated, with sources such as A. Murtonen (1967) and Lionel Bender (1997),[6] suggesting an origin in Ethiopia and others suggesting the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula.[7] A study based on a Bayesian model suggested the latter.[8] This statistical analysis could not estimate when or where the ancestor of all Semitic languages diverged from Afroasiatic but it suggested that the divergence or East, Central, and South Semitic branches occurred in the Levant.[9]

The modern Ethiopian Semitic languages all share subject–object–verb (SOV) word order as part of the Ethiopian language area, but Ge'ez had verb-subject-object (VSO) order in common with other Semitic languages spoken in what is now Yemen.

Classification

The division of Ethiopic into northern and southern branches was proposed by Cohen (1931) and Hetzron (1972) and garnered broad acceptance, but has been challenged by Rainer Voigt, who concludes that the northern and southern languages are closely related.[10]

• North Ethiopic
  • Geʽez (Classical Ethiopic)[11] †
    • Dahalik
    • Tigre
  • Tigrinya
• South Ethiopic
  • Transversal South Ethiopic
    • Amharic–Argobba
      • Amharic – Amharic is the working language of the Federal Government of Ethiopia.[12][13]
      • Argobba
    • Harari–East Gurage
      • Harari
      • East Gurage
        • Silt'e (Silt'e; dialects Ulbare, Wolane, Inneqor)
        • Zway (Zay)
  • Outer South Ethiopic
    • n-group:
      • Gafat – extinct
      • Soddo (Kistane)
    • tt-group:
      • Mesmes – extinct (sometimes considered Inor)
      • Muher
      • West Gurage
        • Mesqan (Masqan)
        • Sebat Bet
          • Sebat Bet Gurage (dialects Chaha, Ezha, Gumer, Gura)
          • Inor (dialects Ennemor [Inor proper], Endegegn, Gyeto)

Hudson (2013)

Hudson (2013) recognises five primary branches of Ethiosemitic. His classification is below.[14]

Ethiosemitic

• North
  • Ge'ez
  • Tigre–Tigrinya
• Gafat (†)
• Soddo–Mesqan–Gurage
  • Soddo
  • Mesqan–Gurage
    • Mesqan
    • Gurage
      • Muher
      • Chaha–Inor
• Silt'e–Zay–Harari
  • Harari
  • Silt'e, Zay
• Argobba–Amharic

References

Bibliography

• Cohen, Marcel (1931). Études d'éthiopien méridional [Southern Ethiopian Studies] (in French). Paris.
• Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: studies in classification. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Weninger, Stefan. "Vom Altäthiopischen zu den neuäthiopischen Sprachen" [From Old Ethiopian to the New Ethiopian Languages]. In Haspelmath, Martin; König, Ekkehard; Oesterreicher, Wulf; Raible, Wolfgang (eds.). Language Typology and Language Universals (in German). Vol. 2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 1762–1774.

На других языках

[fr] Langues éthiosémitiques

[it] Lingue semitiche dell'Etiopia

[ru] Эфиосемитские языки