lingvo.wikisort.org - LanguageSiltʼe (ስልጥኘ [siltʼiɲɲə] or የስልጤ አፍ [jəsiltʼe af]) is an Ethiopian Semitic language spoken in central Ethiopia. A member of the Afroasiatic family, its speakers are the Siltʼe, who mainly inhabit the Siltʼe Zone in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region. Speakers of the Wolane dialect mainly inhabit the Kokir Gedebano district of Gurage Zone, as well as the neighbouring Seden Sodo district of the Oromia Region. Some have also settled in urban areas in other parts of the country, especially Addis Ababa.
Semitic language spoken by Silt’e people in Ethiopia
Siltʼe |
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Native to | Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, Ethiopia |
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Ethnicity | Silt’e |
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Native speakers | 940,000 Siltʼe proper (2007 census)[1] 125,000 speakers of Wolane dialect |
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Language family | Afro-Asiatic
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Semitic
- West Semitic
- South Semitic
- Ethiopic
- South Ethiopic
- Transversal South Ethiopic
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ISO 639-3 | Either:
stv – Siltʼe
wle – Wolane |
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Glottolog | silt1239 |
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This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. |
Speakers and dialects
Dialects of the Siltʼe language include: Azernet-Berbere, Silti, Wuriro, Ulbareg and Wolane. There are about 940,000 native Siltʼe speakers (2007 census); 125,000 speakers of Wolane.
Phonology
Consonants
Siltʼe has a fairly typical set of consonants for an Ethiopian Semitic language. There are the usual ejective consonants, alongside plain voiceless and voiced consonants and all of the consonants, except /h/ and /ʔ/, can be geminated, that is, lengthened.
The charts below show the phonemes of Siltʼe. For the representation of Siltʼe consonants, this article uses a modification of a system that is common (though not universal), among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages, but differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet. When the IPA symbol is different, it is indicated in brackets in the charts.
Consonants
|
Labial |
Dental/ Alveolar |
Postalveolar/ Palatal |
Velar |
Glottal |
Plosive/ Affricate |
Voiceless |
p[lower-alpha 1] |
t |
t͡ʃ ⟨č⟩ |
k |
ʔ[lower-alpha 2] |
Voiced |
b |
d |
d͡ʒ ⟨ǧ⟩ |
ɡ |
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Ejective |
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tʼ |
t͡ʃʼ ⟨čʼ⟩ |
kʼ |
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Fricatives |
Voiceless |
f |
s |
ʃ ⟨š⟩ |
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h |
Voiced |
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z |
ʒ ⟨ž⟩ |
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Nasals |
m |
n |
ɲ ⟨ñ⟩ |
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Approximants |
w |
l |
j ⟨y⟩ |
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Flap/Trill |
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r |
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- /p/ only plays a marginal role in the system, because it appears in only a few words in the Azarnat dialect.
- /ʔ/ only plays a marginal role in the system, because (as in Amharic), it is often omitted.
Vowels
Siltʼe vowels differ considerably from the typical set of seven vowels in languages such as Amharic, Tigrinya and Geʽez. Siltʼe has the set of five short and five long vowels that are typical of the nearby Eastern Cushitic languages, which may be the origin of the Siltʼe system. There is considerable allophonic variation within the short vowels, especially for a; the most frequent allophone of /a/, [ə], is shown in the chart. All of the short vowels may be devoiced preceding a pause.
Vowels
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Front |
Central |
Back |
High |
i, ii |
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u, uu |
Mid |
e, ee |
[ə] ⟨a⟩ |
o, oo |
Low |
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aa |
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Orthography
Since at least the 1980s, Siltʼe has been written in the Geʽez script, originally developed for the now-extinct Geʽez language and most familiar today in its use for Amharic and Tigrinya.
This orthographic system makes distinctions among only seven vowels. Some of the short-long distinctions in Siltʼe are therefore not marked. In practice, this probably does not interfere with comprehension because there are relatively few minimal pairs based on vowel length.
In written Siltʼe, the seven Geʽez vowels are mapped onto the ten Siltʼe vowels as follows:
- ä → a: አለፈ alafa 'he passed'
- u → u, uu: ሙት mut 'death', muut 'thing'
- i →
- ii: ኢን iin 'eye'
- word-final i: መሪ mari 'friend'
- i ending a noun stem: መሪከ marika 'his friend'
- impersonal perfect verb i suffix: ባሊ baali 'people said'; በባሊም babaalim 'even if people said'
- a → aa: ጋራሽ gaaraaš 'your (f.) house'
- e → e, ee: ኤፌ eeffe 'he covered'
- ǝ →
- i (except as above): እንግር ingir 'foot'
- consonant not followed by a vowel: አስሮሽት asroošt 'twelve'
- o → o, oo: ቆጬ kʼočʼe 'tortoise', kʼoočʼe 'he cut'
Language vitality
Meshesha Make Jobo reports that the use of the Siltʼe language is being replaced by the use of Amharic by some speakers for some domains. He points to large political and social factors, many from the national level. He also points out smaller, local factors, such as the lack of creatively genres.[2]
References
- Siltʼe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Wolane at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - Meshesha Make Jobo. 2016. Indigenous language shift in Siltie: Causes, effects and directions for revitalization. Journal of Languages and Culture 7(7): 69-78.
Bibliography
- Dirk Bustorf 2011: Lebendige Überlieferung: Geschichte und Erinnerung der muslimischen Siltʼe Äthiopiens. With an English Summary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (Aethiopistische Forschungen 74).
- Cohen, Marcel (1931). Études d'éthiopien méridional. Société Asiatique, Collection d'ouvrages orientaux. Paris: Geuthner.
- Drewes, A.J. (1997). "The story of Joseph in Sïltʼi Gurage", in: Grover Hudson (ed.), Essays on Gurage language and culture: dedicated to Wolf Leslau on the occasion of his 90th birthday, November 14, 1996, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 69–92.
- Gutt, E.H.M. & Hussein Mohammed (1997). Siltʼe–Amharic–English dictionary (with a concise grammar by E-A Gutt). Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press.
- Gutt, E.-A. (1983). Studies in the phonology of Silti. Journal of Ethiopian Studies 16, pp. 37–73.
- Gutt, E.-A. (1991). "Aspects of number in Siltʼi grammar", in: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (Addis Ababa), pp. 453–464.
- Gutt, E.-A. (1997). "Concise grammar of Siltʼe", in: Gutt, E.H.M. 1997, pp. 895–960.
- Leslau, W. (1979). Etymological Dictionary of Gurage (Ethiopic). 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-02041-5
- Wagner, Ewald (1983). "Seltʼi-verse in arabischer Schrift aus dem Schlobies-Nachlass", in: Stanislav Segert & András J.E. Bodrogligeti (eds.), Ethiopian studies dedicated to Wolf Leslau, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 363–374.
External links
Languages of Ethiopia |
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Official language | |
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Regional languages | Ethiosemitic | |
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Cushitic | |
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Omotic | |
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Nilo-Saharan | |
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Immigrant languages | |
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Sign languages | |
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Afroasiatic languages |
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Berber languages |
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Reconstructed | |
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Eastern | |
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Northern | Zenati |
- Eastern Middle Atlas (transitional to Atlas)
- Northern Saharan
- Riffian
- Shawiya
- Tunisian-Zuwara (transitional to Eastern)
- Western Algerian
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Non-Zenati |
- Atlas languages
- Kabyle
- Central-Eastern
- Central-Western
- Eastern
- Western
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Standardised | |
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Tuareg | |
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Western | |
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Others | |
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Orthography | |
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Institutions | Governmental |
- AAAL (Algeria)
- HCA (Algeria)
- IRCAM (Morocco)
- DNAFLA (Mali)
- CRB (France)
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NGOs |
- Berber Academy
- World Amazigh Congress
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Italics indicate extinct languages |
Biu–Mandara languages |
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Tera | |
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Bura–Higi | |
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Wandala (Mandara) | |
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Mafa | Northeast | |
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South (A) | |
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South (B) |
- Ɗugwor
- Gemzek
- Merey
- Mikere
- Zəlgwa-Minew
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South (C) | |
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South (D) | |
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Others | |
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Daba | |
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Bata (Gbwata) | |
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Mandage (Kotoko) | |
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East– Central | |
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Others | |
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Italics indicate extinct languages. See also: Chadic languages |
Cushitic languages |
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North Cushitic | |
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Agaw | |
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Highland East | |
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Lowland East | Saho–Afar | |
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Oromoid | |
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Konsoid | |
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(West) Omo–Tana | |
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Rendille–Boni | |
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Somali | |
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Other | |
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Dullay | |
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South | |
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Italics indicate extinct languages |
East Chadic languages |
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East Chadic (A) | Sibine | |
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Miltu | |
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Nancere | |
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Gabri | |
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Kwang | |
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Others | |
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East Chadic (B) | Dangla (B.1.1) | |
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Mubi (B.1.2) | |
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Sokoro (B.3) | |
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Barain (B.4) | |
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Others | |
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Italics indicate extinct languages. See also: Chadic languages |
Masa languages |
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North | |
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South | |
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Italics indicate extinct languages. See also: Chadic languages |
Omotic languages |
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South Omotic | |
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Mao | |
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Dizoid | |
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North Omotic (Ta-Ne) | |
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Italics indicate extinct languages |
Semitic languages |
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East | |
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West | Central | |
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South | Ethiopic | |
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Modern South Arabian | |
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Old South Arabian | |
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- Italics indicate extinct or historical languages.
- Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.
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West Chadic languages |
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Hausa–Gwandara (A.1) | |
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Bole–Tangale (A.2) | |
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Angas (A.3) | |
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Ron (A.4) | |
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Bade (B.1) | |
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Warji (B.2) | |
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Barawa (B.3) | |
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Others | |
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Italics indicate extinct languages. See also: Chadic languages |
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Semitic languages |
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East | |
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West | Central | |
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South | Ethiopic | |
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Modern South Arabian | |
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Old South Arabian | |
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- Italics indicate extinct or historical languages.
- Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.
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Authority control: National libraries  | |
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На других языках
[de] Silt’e (Sprache)
Silt’e (ስልጥኘ .mw-parser-output .IPA a{text-decoration:none}[siltʼiɲɲǝ] oder የስልጤ አፍ [jǝsiltʼe af]) ist eine semitische Sprache, die von den Silt’e im südlichen Zentraläthiopien gesprochen wird.
- [en] Siltʼe language
[ru] Селти (язык)
Селти[1] — эфиосемитский язык, на котором говорят в Эфиопии. Распространён в области Народностей Южной Эфиопии (зона Сыльти). По данным 2007 года было около 935 тыс. носителей языка. В начальной школе является языком обучения, в старших классах преподаётся как предмет[2].
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