by Lionel Bender & Hailu Fulass:-
Note....
This exert is from the text "Amharic Verb Morphology: A Generative Approach" by Lionel
Bender and Hailu Fulass. The introduction covers the origins and development of the
Ethio-Semitic languages in what was probably the best theory arrived at at the time of
publication (1978), and may still be the best so far. The
This is copyrighted material. Naturally, you may not redistribute in any form for
profit. The authors and reference must be cited in any of your own work that refers
to material in this posting. Typos herein are my own, from what I failed to clean up
from OCR scans -sorry :(
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Linguistic Setting
All but a relative handful of Ethiopians are native speakers of languages
of one genetic super-family: Afroasiatic. Updating my BBCF (1976: 16) figures,
I estimate the number of speakers of non-Afroasiatic languages to be about
400,000 out of an approximate 1976 total of 28,000,000. Of the more than 98%
who are first-speakers of Afroasiatic languages, about 13,000,000 speak Amharic
or Tigrinya, two closely-related Semitic languages. Another 9,000,000 speak
Oromo or Somali, two related Cushitic languages. These four account for nearly
4/5 of all Ethiopians. The remainder mostly speak demographically smaller
Semitic or Cushitic languages, with about 1,500,000 others speaking languages
of the Omotic Family. One Omotic language, Welaita (Welamo), with its many local
varieties, approaches 1,000,000 speakers. Three Highland East Cushitic
languages, Hadiyya, Kembata, and Sidamo, number more than 500,000 speakers each.
The eight named languages might be considered the major Ethiopian languages:
they account for about 5/6 of the total population, and no other language
exceeds 500,000 speakers.
Not only are the languages spoken by most Ethiopians genetically related,
but (as Ferguson 1970 and 1976 has shown) the phenomenon of diffusion of traits
over a large area has resulted in even more sharing of common features than one
would expect among languages of three coordinate branches of a super-family. In
fact, the Afroasiatic languages of Ethiopia and adjoining countries constitute
an impressive example of a language area, clearly set off from surrounding
Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Kordofanian languages by the features identified by
Ferguson. This phenomenon gives rise to a problem of cause and effect in
discussing other-language influence on Amharic, as we shall see in section
1.3 below.
In order to keep the relationship of languages clear in what is to follow,
simplified family-tree diagrams will be presented here. Names of languages and
groups with Ethiopian representation are underlined.
Afroasiatic Superfamily
_______________________|________________________
| | | | | |
Chadic Berber Ancient Egyptian Semitic Cushitic Omotic
------- -------- ------
Semitic Family
_______________________|_____________________
| |
East Semitic West Semitic
(Akkadian) |
____________________________________|
| |
South Semitic Central Semitic
_______|____________ ______|_____
| | | |
South Ethio-Semitic Arabo- Aramaic
Arabian ------------- Canaanite
languages _____|______
| |
Arabic Canaanite
------ (Hebrew and
Phoenician)
[[ Cushitic and Omotic Trees Omitted ]]
(Adapted from Hetzron l975)
Ethio-Semitic
_________________________|___________________
| |
North South
____|___________ __|_________
| | | ___________| |
Giiz | | | | |
Tigre Tigrinya ____|____ Others_1 Others_2
| |
Amharic Argobba
(Adapted from Hetzron 1972)
1.2 The History of Amharic and Related Languages
A brief summary of a possible history of the origin and development of
Amharic follows. For more details, see Bender forthcoming and the references
therein.
In the first three centuries A.D., Semitic-speaking people were building a
"South Arabian" (or "North Ethiopian") type of civilization in Eritrea, later
centering about Aksum in Tigrai Province. As early as the middle of the fourth
century, military expeditions may have reached the area later known as Amhara.
By the mid-ninth century, a distinctive Amhara region was recognized. The
conquering Semitic-speakers spoke a language which was perhaps only four to
seven centuries removed from a common origin with Giiz, the classical language
of the Aksum Empire and of Medieval Ethiopian religion and literature. This
pre-Amharic may have been as similar to Giiz as Icelandic is to Norwegian, or
even more so. But meanwhile an interesting process was taking place among the
subjugated peoples. The military forces were drawn from a number of diverse
ethnic groups: perhaps largely Agew, but with significant numbers of speakers
of other Cushitic and Omotic languages -- they may have had
Nilo-Saharan-speaking servants, slaves, and artisans. A lingua franca based on
"Cushomotic" syntax (i.e., verb-final) and Semitic lexicon was being used for
communication in the ranks and among many of the Agew peasants of Amhara.
This situation may have persisted for centuries, as have similar situations
in the Caribbean and elsewhere. In short, a complicated diglossic situation had
been created, with the ruling elite speaking a slowly changing Semitic tongue
out of old Aksum, the military ranks using a creole based on Semitic (plus use
of their own native tongues) and the peasantry using the creole and also Agew.
As the Agew slowly began to fuse with their conquerors, and military and
Orthodox Christian missionary campaigns extended ever further - west, south,
and east, other linguistic groups were added to the creole brew and it was
shifting, but ever based on Semitic lexicon and Cushomotic syntax.
An Agew dynasty known as Zagwe came to power after upwards of seven
centuries of this diglossic situation. This may have meant a resurgence of Agew
speech, but it also meant an acceleration of the process of the creole impinging
on the "standard" Semitic language. By the four-teenth century, the standard
itself would be as far removed in time from its common origin with Giiz as
present-day English is from that of Alfred the Great. It seems that the creole
displaced both the "standard" and Agew as the dominant language of the nascent
state. This language is now by the accidents of history, a post-creole and the
national language of Ethiopia. It is first attested in some fourteenth-century
songs praising the kings at that time. The creole nature of the language of
these songs has caused great difficulties to scholars, especially if one looks
on the language as an orthodox linear ancestor of Amharic, as first suggested
by Hailu Fulass.
Meanwhile, according to Hetzron 1972, a sister language to Giiz was
diverging into two Northern languages, which unlike Giiz, are still spoken.
Tigre was influenced by the Beja of one of the "barbarian" tribes whose
onslaughts toppled Aksum. It is now spoken in northwest Eritrea by about 140,000
Muslim agricultural pastoralists. Tigrinya was influenced by the local Agew
populations and is now the dominant language in Eritrea and Tigre Provinces,
spoken by nearly 4,000,000 persons there and in urban settlements throughout
Ethiopia. Tigrinya-speakers are mostly Orthodox Christians, but there is also a
sizable number of Muslims (known as Jabarti) who are Tigrinya-speakers. Note
that Tigre (actually Tigré a language of extreme northern Eritrea that Tigrai
is a province in which Tigrinya (not Tigre) is spoken. In other parts of
Ethiopia, Tigrinya-speakers are often called Tigres, after the former name of
the province.
When Aksum was under pressure from the Beja and other invaders, he main
retreat route was to the south. The southerners passed through Agew-gpeaking
territory, and this meant Agew influence on the language also. The picture gets
more complicated: a vanguard group went far south and this migration led to the
eventual development of most of the "Gurage" languages, with Highland East
Cushitic as main "sub-stratum". From an unspecified center further north, at a
later date, another group moved southeast and split into two: one section went
south and under Sidamo or Somali or other influence, gave rise to Harari and
East Gurage languages. The other group remained in touch with the old
northern civilization, and inherited it when the' northern empire collapsed.
These were the people who brought Semitic speech to the Amhara region, as
outlined above. Note that the above outline is quite controversial and that
many problems remain to be resolved.
Amharic is spoken as a "mother-tongue" by about 9,000,000 persons. No one
has made a scientific estimate of the number of non-native speakers of Amharic
(of course the estimate would depend partly on how much competence is required
for inclusion). A figure often mentioned is "half the total Ethiopian
population": this would mean about 5,000,000 additional speakers. Amharic
speakers are mainly Orthodox Christians, but the number of followers of other
beliefs is significant, especially among non-native-speakers. As the national
language, Amharic is spoken in every province, but the indigenous areas
are those radiating out from the old province of Amhara in southwestern Wello
to Wello, Begemidir. Gojjam, and into Shewa and Harerge. The question of other
language influences on Amharic is the subject of the next section. Regional
variation in Amharic is relatively slight b for such a far-flung language (see
Hailu et al. 1976). There is a considerable body of literature.
Amharic does have one quite divergent dialect: Argobba. This is probably
best considered as a Muslim dialect, spoken by perhaps 1-2,000 people in some
villages on and below the eastern edge of the great central Ethiopian escarpment
north-east of Addis Ababa. The Argobba community near Harer in eastern Ethiopia
seems to have given up the dialect except in some songs, which are no longer
well-understood (Sidney Waldron, p.c., 1975). Contrary to earlier reports,
Argobba seems to be holding its own in its western area (Stitz 1975).
Gafat may still be spoken by a few old persons in the vicinity of the Blue
Nile in southwestern Gojjam Province. Wolf Leslau was able to find four elderly
informants in 1947. He places Gafat linguistically closest to some "Gurage"
varieties, based on his work with informants and study of documents (Leslau
1945a, 1956).
Harari is spoken by about 15,000 of the Muslim inhabitants of the old
walled city of Harer in the highlands of eastern Ethiopia. Harari shows Arabic
influence, and as mentioned above, earlier "sub-stratum" influence, especially
from Highland East Cushitic. Though Harer is an area of high multilingualism
(Amharic, Oromo, Somali, Arabic) Harari is holding its own because of the
extreme solidarity of the Harari community (Waldron 1975). There are sizable
Harari settlements "outside the walls" in Harer and in other urban centers such
as Addis Ababa and Jimma, and the total number of speakers may exceed 30,000.
Harari is one of the remnants of a probable East Gurage continuum extending
from the present East Gurage area south of Addis Ababa to Harer.
Aside from specific terms such as "North Gurage" and "East Gurage", Hetzron
(1972: 6, 126 note 3) argues that Gurage makes sense only as a name for a group
of persons speaking several Semitic languages in south-central Ethiopia. Most
of these languages are spoken in a compact mountainous area in Shewa Province
south of Addis Ababa. According to Hailu Fulass, most of the speakers are
bilingual in their Gurage variety and Amharic. Some scholars have argued for a
special Gurage link to the northern languages, but this is based on a few
striking shared archaisms only (cf. Hetzron1972: 126, note 3) and some rather
shaky historical peculation. Certainly the Gurage languages and Amharic) show
great phonological deviations from the northern languages and from Semitic in
general. The origin of the Gurage communities is an unsettled issue: there is
good reason to believe that they are the outgrowth of ancient military colonies
from the north, though some reject this (Hudson 1977). Many speakers of Gurage
varieties are found in urban centers, especially Addis Ababa. The total number
is hard to estimate: a 1976 figure of 1,000,000 may not be unreasonable.
Speakers of Chaha and mutually intelligible varieties may exceed 100,000.
Gurage peoples are about evenly divided between Orthodox Christian and Muslim,
with traditional beliefs also still very much alive.
Source: http://www.abyssiniagateway.net/info/bender.html
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