Aari language
Encyclopedia
Aari is an Omotic
Omotic languages
The Omotic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic family spoken in southwestern Ethiopia. The Ge'ez alphabet is used to write some Omotic languages, the Roman alphabet for some others. They are fairly agglutinative, and have complex tonal systems .-Language list:The North and South Omotic...

 language of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. The speakers of this language have been known as Shankilla (or Shanqella
Shanqella
Shanqella is an Ethiopian term used to refer to a number of ethnic groups residing primarily in the western-most part of Ethiopia and who constitute about 5% of Ethiopia's population...

), a name which is considered derogatory. According to the 2007 census, over 285,000 people speak Aari as a mother tongue.

There are ten dialects, corresponding to the ten tribes of the Aari people: Gozza, Bako, Biyo, Galila, Laydo, Seyki, Shangama, Sido, Wubahamer, and Zeddo. Literacy
Education in Ethiopia
Education in Ethiopia has been dominated by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for many centuries until secular education was adopted in the early 1900s. Prior to 1974, Ethiopia had an estimated illiteracy rate well above 90% and compared poorly with the rest of Africa in the provision of schools and...

 in Aari is about 10%. The first translation of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 into Aari was published in 1997.

External links

  • The Aari people (missionary
    Missionary
    A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

     report)
  • "Map of the Aari language", LL-Map website
  • Ethnologue
    Ethnologue
    Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

     information on Aari
  • World Atlas of Language Structures
    World Atlas of Language Structures
    The World Atlas of Language Structures is a database of structural properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM in 2005, and was released as the second edition on the Internet in April 2008...

    information on Aari
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK