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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
Native to	Ethiopia
Region	Bench Maji Zone, Kafa region
Native speakers	39,000 (2007 census)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Omotic North Dizoid Sheko
Language codes
ISO 639-3	she
Glottolog	shek1245
ELP	Sheko

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).

Phonology

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]

Consonants

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]

Vowels

Hellenthal (2010, p. 56) lists the following long and short vowels of Sheko: /i/, /ii/, /e/, /ee/ /ə/, /a/, /aa/, /u/, /uu/, /o/, /oo/.

Tones

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]

Grammar

The 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."

Notes

References

• Breeze, Mary. 1988. "Phonological features of Gimira and Dizi." In Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko (eds.), Cushitic – Omotic: papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic languages, Cologne, January 6–9, 1986, 473–487. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
• Hellenthal, Anneke Christine. 2009. Handout on Sheko subject clitics. download
• Hellenthal, Anneke Christine (2010). A grammar of Sheko (Ph.D. thesis). Leiden University. hdl:1887/15692.
• Yilma, Aklilu (1988). The phonology of Sheko (MA thesis). Addis Ababa University.
• Yilma, Aklilu, Ralph Siebert and Kati Siebert. 2002. "Sociolinguistic survey of the Omotic languages Sheko and Yem." SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-053.

External links

• Sheko basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• ELAR archive of Guraferdan Sheko

На других языках

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- [en] Sheko language

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[fr] Sheko

Le sheko est une langue afro-asiatique de la branche des langues omotiques parlée dans le Sud-Ouest de l'Éthiopie, au Nord de la rivière Gilo, par 23 785 Sheko.

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