Cushitic Branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family

Introduction

Somalia

Camel

Woman

Somalia boy

Women in veils

Worker in field

Ethopian Hut

The Cushitic people, who live around the Horn region of Africa, a peninsula in East Africa, and today comprise the Somali, Afar, Oromo and several other tribes, are thought to be the offspring of the Biblical Cush, mentioned in the Genesis.

There are 47 Cushitic languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, and Djibouti -- countries located in the Horn of Africa. The dominant languages, both in terms of number of speakers and geographical extension are Oromo, with about 20 million speakers in Ethiopia and Kenya; Somali, with 12.6 million speakers in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Djibouti; Sidamo with 1.8 million speakers in Ethiopia; Afar with about 1.5 million speakers in Eritrea; and Bedawi with about 1.2 million speakers in Sudan.

The table below lists 16 Cushitic languages with more than 100,000 speakers. All the remaining languages have populations of under 100,000 speakers, and some of them are small enough to be endangered or on the brink of extinction.

Cushitic (47 languages)
Language	Population	Primarily spoken in
Xamtanga	143,000	Ethiopia
Awngi	357,000
Alaba	126,000
Gedeo	637,000
Hadiyya	924,000
Kambaata	606,000
Sidamo	1.8 million
Komso	150,000
Oromo, Borana-Arsi-Guji	3.8 million
Oromo West Central	8.9 million
Oromo Eastern	4.5 million
Afar	1. 4 million
Saho	180,000	Eritrea
Somali	12.6 million	Somalia
Maay	595,000	Somalia
Bedawi (Beja)	1.2 million	Sudan
Iraq	462,000	Tanzania
Garreh-Ajuran	128,000	Kenya

Because West Cushitic languages have few vocabulary items in common with the other Cushitic tongues, some scholars consider them to form a separate branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, called Omotic.

The table below lists the most populous Omotic (West Cushitic Languages).

West Cushitic (Omotic) (28 languages)
Bench	174,000	Ethiopia
Gamo-Gofa-Dawro	1.2 million
Wolaytta	1.2 million
Koorete	104,000
Kafa	569,626
Aari	158,857

Status
Somali
Somali is the only Cushitic language that enjoys an official status. It is one of the national languages of Somalia, along with Standard Arabic and English.

Oromo

Oromo is a trade languages used for official government purposes, by the public media, in commerce, in the educational system up to the eighth grade, and in a variety of literature.

Their tonal system is different from other tonal languages, such as Chinese, in which every word is associated with a particular tone.

Structure

Sound System

Sound system
Cushitic languages exhibit great phonological complexity.

Vowels
There are five vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, /u/. They can be short or long. Vowel length makes a difference in word meaning.

Consonants
Most Cushitic languages have 22-24 consonants. The consonants b, d, dh, g, l, m, n, and r can be single or doubled (geminated). Native Cushitic words do not have the consonants /p/, /v/, and /z/. These sounds occur only in loanwords.

Syllable shapes
Most syllables in Cushitic languages are open, i.e., end in a vowel.

Tones
Cushitic languages are tonal. Their tonal system is different from other tonal languages such as Chineses in which every word is associated with a particular tone. The Cushitic tone-accent system is mostly active at the grammar and discourse levels to indicate grammatical categories and information structure rather than to make a difference in word meaning.

Grammar

Words in Cushitic languages can be modified to express grammatical categories by means of prefixes, suffixes, and internal changes.

Noun phrase

Cushitic languages distinguish two genders (masculine and faminine), and show some traces of noun declension. Plural is expressed through reduplication or partial reduplication of stems.

Verb phrase
Verbs are marked for tense and aspect. Most verbs are a combination of an auxiliary verb followed by a verbal noun with a vowel suffix indicating whether the verb is transitive or intransitive, etc. In some verbs, conjugation is accomplished by means of prefixed actor markers.

Word order
Cushitic languages have a Verb-Subject-Object word order.

Vocabulary

Cushitic languages have many borrowings from Arabic, from other languages of Ethiopia, as well as from Nilo-Saharan languages.

Numbers 1-10 in selected Cushitic languages

Do you see any similarities among these languages?
Are there any languages that show less fit than the others?

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Oromo	tokko	lama	sadii	afur	shan	ja'a	torba	saddeet	sagal	kudha
Somali	mid-ki	laba-di	sadehh-di	afar-ti	shan-ti	lehh-di	todoba-di	sided-di	sagal-ki	toban-ki
Afar	inik-i	nammay-a	sidox-u	firey-i	konoy-u	lixey-i	malxiin-i	baxaar-a	sagaal-a	taban-a
Saho	iniik	lammaa	adoh	afaar	koon	leeh	maleheen	bahaar	sagaal	tammon
Bedawi	ngaal	mhaloo'b	mhay	fad'ig	?ay	asagwir	asaramaa	samhay	as's'ad'ig	tamin
Sidamo	mitte	lame	sase	shoole	onte	leye	lamala	sette	honse	tonne

Writing

Cushitic languages are written in several scripts, among them Roman-based alphabets, Ethiopic script, and Osmanya.

Resources

Click on the name of a Cushitic language to learn more about it on this website

Oromo
Somali