Social:Kafa language
From HandWiki
Short description: North Omotic language spoken in Ethiopia
| Kafa | |
|---|---|
| Kafi noono | |
| Native to | Ethiopia |
| Region | Keffa Zone |
| Ethnicity | Kafficho |
Native speakers | 830,000 (2007 census)[1] |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kbr |
| Glottolog | kafa1242[2] |
Kafa or Kefa (Kafi noono) is a North Omotic language spoken in Ethiopia at the Keffa Zone. It is part of the Ethiopian Language Area, with SOV word order, ejective consonants, etc.
A collection of proverbs in the language has been published by Mesfin Wodajo.[3]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | gem. | plain | gem. | plain | gem. | plain | gem. | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | pː | t | tː | tʃ | tʃː | k | kː | ʔ |
| voiced | b | bː | d | dː | dʒ | dʒː | g | ɡː | ||
| ejective | pʼ | pːʼ | tʼ | tːʼ | tʃʼ | tʃːʼ | kʼ | kːʼ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sː | ʃ | h | ||||
| voiced | z | |||||||||
| Nasal | m | mː | n | nː | ||||||
| Rhotic | ɾ | |||||||||
| Approximant | w | l | lː | j | ||||||
- /f/ may also be heard as [ɸ] in free variation.
- /b/ can be heard as a bilabial approximant [β̞] in intervocalic positions.
- /t/ can be realized as [ts] in word-final position.[4]
Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː |
| Mid | ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː |
| Open | a aː |
- /a/ may also have an allophone of [ə].[4]
Manjo
| Manjo | |
|---|---|
| Mangiò | |
| (speculative) | |
| Native to | Ethiopia |
| Ethnicity | Manjo |
| Extinct | (date missing) |
unattested | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | mang1364[5] |
Within the Kafa culture there is a caste of traditional hunters called the Manja/Manjo 'hunters'. They may once have spoken a different language. However, Leikola has shown that currently they speak Kafa with a number of distinctive words and constructions that they use, reinforcing the distinctions between themselves and the larger Kafa society.[6]
References
- ↑ Ethiopia 2007 Census
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Kafa". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/kafa1242.
- ↑ 2012. Functions and Formal and Stylistic Features of Kafa Proverbs: Functional and Structural Approach. Lambert Academic Publishing.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Theil, Rolf (2007). Kafa phonology. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2: DeGruyter Mouton. pp. 193–216.
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Mangio". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/mang1364.
- ↑ Leikola, Kirsi (2014). Talking Manjo: Linguistic repertoires as means of negotiating marginalization (PhD dissertation). University of Helsinki. hdl:10138/44772.
- Bibliography
- Theil, Rolf (2007). Kafa phonology. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2: DeGruyter Mouton. pp. 193–216. doi:10.1515/JALL.2007.010.
Further reading
- Aberra, Daniel. 2019. Kafa English Amharic Dictionary. Distributed via the Web.
- Brockelmann, Carl (1950): Zur Grammatik der Kafa-Sprache. in: Brockelmann, Carl (ed.): Abbessinische Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Leipzig. pp. 40–60.
- Cerulli, Enrico (1951). Studi etiopici. IV: La lingua Caffina. Roma: Istituto Per L'oriente.
- Fleming, Harold C. (1976). "Kefa (Gonga) Languages". in M. L. Bender. The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. African Studies Center, Michigan State University. pp. 351-376.
- Wubet, Tilahun (2009). The morphology of Kafi Noonoo (Masters). Addis Ababa University.
- Tekle, Girma Tesfaye (2010). Structure of the noun phrase in Kafi Noonoo (Masters). Addis Ababa University.
- Nesha, Abdulfetah (2011). Word Formation In Kafi Noonoo (Masters). Adis Abeba University.
- Kassa, Taye (2012). Case system of Kafi Noonoo (Masters). Adis Abeba: Adis Abeba University.
- Theil, Rolf (2023). "Kafa". Oxford Handbook of Ethiopian Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 973-1004.
- Haile, Abriham Assefa; Garoma, Eba Teresa; Zeleke, Tewodros (2026). "Lexical Comparison between the Decha and Gesha Dialects of Kafi Noonoo". Afrika Focus: 1-26. doi:10.1163/2031356x-2026xx01.
External links
- World Atlas of Language Structures information on Kefa
| Official language | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regional languages |
| ||||||||
| Sign languages | |||||||||
 |  |
- ↑ Aberra, Daniel. 2025. Case in Kafa. Studies of Ethiopian Languages 14.
