Kafa_language

Kafa language

Kafa language

North Omotic language spoken in Ethiopia

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.

Quick Facts Native to, Region ...

A collection of proverbs in the language has been published by Mesfin Wodajo.[2]

Phonology

Consonants

More information Labial, Alveolar ...
  • /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.[3]

Vowels

More information Front, Back ...
  • /a/ may also have an allophone of [ə].[3]

Manjo

Quick Facts Manjo, Language family ...

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.[4]

References

  1. [1]
    Ethiopia 2007 Census Archived 2010-11-14 at the Wayback Machine
  2. [2]
    2012. Functions and Formal and Stylistic Features of Kafa Proverbs: Functional and Structural Approach. Lambert Academic Publishing.
  3. [3]
    Theil, Rolf (2007). Kafa phonology. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2: DeGruyter Mouton. pp. 193–216.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  4. [4]
    Leikola, Kirsi. 2014. Talking Manjo: Linguistic repertoires as means of negotiating marginalization. University of Helsinki: PhD dissertation.

Further reading

  • 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. Vol. IV: La lingua Caffina. Roma: Istituto Per L'oriente.
  • Fleming, Harold C. (1976), "Kefa (Gonga) Languages", in The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. Bender, M. L. (ed.)


Stub icon

This Ethiopia-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This Afroasiatic languages-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Kafa_language, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.