| States | Ethiopia |
|---|---|
| Region | Bench Maji Zone, Kafa region |
| Date | 2007 census |
| Ref | e25 |
| Familycolor | Afro-Asiatic |
| Fam 2 | Omotic |
| Fam 3 | North |
| Fam 4 | Dizoid |
| Iso 3 | she |
| Glotto | shek1245 |
| Glottorefname | Sheko |
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.[1]
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,[2] five long vowels and six short vowels,[3] plus four phonemic tone levels.[4]
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/.[5] Consonants are rarely geminated,[6] and there is a syllabic nasal /n̩/.[7]
Vowels
Hellenthal (2010, p. 56) lists the following long and short vowels of Sheko: /i/, /iː/, /e/, /eː/ /ə/, /a/, /aː/, /u/, /uː/, /o/, /oː/.
Tones
Sheko is one of very few languages in Africa that have four distinct phonemic tone levels.[8] Tone distinguishes meaning both in the lexicon and in the grammar, particularly to distinguish persons in the pronominal system.[9]
Grammar
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
- ^ Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 45
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 56
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 111
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 47
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 47
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 58
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 111
- ^ Hellenthal 2010, p. 113
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.). Leiden University. hdl:1887/15692
- Yilma, Aklilu (1988). The phonology of Sheko (MA). 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.