Awngi language
Encyclopedia
The Awngi language, in older publications also called Awiya (an inappropriate ethnonym), is a Central Cushitic language spoken by the Awi people
, living in Central Gojjam
in northwestern Ethiopia
. The language is classified as Southern Central Cushitic or Southern Agaw
in the literature, and as such belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family.
Most speakers of the language live in the Agew Awi Zone
of the Amhara Region
, but there are also communities speaking the language in various areas of Metekel Zone
of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region. Until recently, Kunfäl, another Southern Agaw language spoken in the area west of Lake Tana
, has been suspected to be a separate language. It has now been shown to be linguistically close to Awngi, and it should be classified as a dialect of that language.
The central vowel /ɨ/ is the default epenthetic vowel of the language and almost totally predictable in its occurrence. Likewise, /æ/, normally an allophone of /a/, is fossilized in some words and might be justified as a separate phoneme.
. Exceptions to this happen at word boundaries, where extrametrical
consonants may appear.
and non-geminate consonants. The contrast between geminate and non-geminate consonants does not show up for the following consonants: /ɢ, ɢʷ, t͡s, t͡ʃ, j, w, ʒ/.
calls this process regressive vowel height assimilation
. The vowel harmony only takes place if the underlying vowel of the last stem syllable is e. This vowel and all preceding instances of e and o will take over the feature
[+high], until a different vowel is encountered. Then the vowel harmony is blocked. Hetzron provides the following example: /moleqés-á/ ‘nun’ vs. /muliqís-í/ ‘monk’
. It is written with an orthography based on the Ethiopian Script. Extra fidels used for Awngi are ጝ for the sound ŋ and ቕ for the sound q. The fidel ፅ is used for ts, the fidel ኽ for the sound ɢ. Various aspects of the Awngi orthography are yet to be finally decided.
-cum-gender
(masculine
, feminine
or plural
) and case
. The nominative is unmarked for one class of nouns, or marked by -i for masculine nouns and -a for feminine nouns. Other cases are accusative, dative, genitive, locative, directional, ablative, comitative, comparative
, invocative and translative. Hetzron also mentions adverbial as a case of Awngi, but an interpretation as a derivation
al marker seems to be more appropriate. Both number-cum-gender and case are marked through suffix
es to the noun stems.
al forms. The four main tenses
are imperfective past, imperfective non-past, perfective past and perfective non-past. There are various other coordinate and subordinate forms which are all marked through suffixes to the verb stems. The following distinctions are maintained for Person: 1sg, 2sg, 3masc, 3fem, 1pl, 2pl, 3pl.
Hetzron demonstrated that the Awngi verbal morphology is most economically described when it is assumed that for every verb there are four distinct stems: The first stem is for 3masc, 2pl, 3pl. The second stem is for 1sg only, the third stem for 2sg and 3fem, and the fourth stem for 1pl only. These four stems need to be noted for every verb in the lexicon
and serve as the basis for all other verbal morphology. The stems remain the same throughout all verbal paradigms, and it is possible to predict the surface form of each paradigm
member with these stems and the simple tense suffixes.
is always at the end. The basic word order is therefore SOV. Subordination and coordination is achieved exclusively through verbal affixation.
Awi people
The Awi people are an ethnic group in Ethiopia, and are grouped as one of the Agaw people. The Awis live in Agew Awi Zone in Central Gojjam, and have a few communities in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region.- Population :...
, living in Central Gojjam
Gojjam
Gojjam was a kingdom in the north-western part of Ethiopia, with its capital city at Debre Marqos. This region is distinctive for lying entirely within the bend of the Abbay River from its outflow from Lake Tana to the Sudan...
in northwestern 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 language is classified as Southern Central Cushitic or Southern Agaw
Agaw
The Agaw are an ethnic group in Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea.-History:The Agaw are perhaps first mentioned in the 3rd c. AD Aksumite inscription recorded by Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th century...
in the literature, and as such belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family.
Most speakers of the language live in the Agew Awi Zone
Agew Awi Zone
Agew Awi is one of 10 Zones in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Agew Awi is named for the Awi sub-group of the Agaw people, some of whom live in this Zone. Agew Awi is bordered on the south by the Oromia Region, on the west by Benishangul-Gumuz Region, on the north-west by Semien Gondar Zone and on...
of the Amhara Region
Amhara Region
Amhara is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia, containing the homeland of the Amhara people. Previously known as Region 3, its capital is Bahir Dar....
, but there are also communities speaking the language in various areas of Metekel Zone
Metekel Zone
Metekel is one of the three Zones in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, named after the former Metekkel province. It is bordered on the south by Kamashi, on the southwest by Asosa, on the west by Sudan, and on the north and east by the Amhara Region...
of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region. Until recently, Kunfäl, another Southern Agaw language spoken in the area west of Lake Tana
Lake Tana
Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia...
, has been suspected to be a separate language. It has now been shown to be linguistically close to Awngi, and it should be classified as a dialect of that language.
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | ɨ | u |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
e | a | o |
The central vowel /ɨ/ is the default epenthetic vowel of the language and almost totally predictable in its occurrence. Likewise, /æ/, normally an allophone of /a/, is fossilized in some words and might be justified as a separate phoneme.
Consonants
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palato- Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... plain |
p | t | k | q |
| Voiceless Labialized | kʷ | qʷ | |||
| Voiced VOICED Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation... plain |
b | d | ɡ | ɢ | |
| Voiced labialized | ɡʷ | ɢʷ | |||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
Voiceless | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ||
| Voiced | d͡z | d͡ʒ | |||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f | s | ʃ | ||
| Post-stopped fricative | s͡t | ʃ͡t | |||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
Plain | m | n | ŋ | |
| Labialized | ŋʷ | ||||
| Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
r | ||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | l | j | ||
- Palatal and velar together in Awngi form only one place of articulation, which is called palato-velar.
- Post-stopped fricatives are assumed to be single segments in Awngi for phonotactic reasons. Other linguists (e.g. Richard Wiese for German) have called such sounds suffricates. is found word-initially in loanwordLoanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s in free variationFree variationFree variation in linguistics is the phenomenon of two sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers...
with Zero. does not occur word-initially. It is pronounced as a flapFlap consonantIn phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
[ɾ] when not geminate. - Between vowels, /b/ is pronounced as a voiced bilabial fricativeVoiced bilabial fricative-See also:* List of phonetics topics...
[β]. is pronounced retracted, with slight retroflexionRetroflex consonantA retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
. and /ɢʷ/ are usually pronounced as voiced uvular fricatives [ʁ] and [ʁʷ]. - Although /d͡z/ and /d͡ʒ/ are phonetically realized as fricatives [z] and [ʒ] in many environments, they are very much the voiced counterparts of the voiceless affricates with respect to phonological rules.
- The labialization contrast in the palato-velar and uvular consonants is found only before the vowels /i, e, a/ and word-finally.
Tones
Palmer and Hetzron both identified three distinctive tone levels in Awngi: high, mid and low. The low tone, however, only appears in word-final position on the vowel a. A falling tone (high-mid) appears on word-final syllables only. Joswig reanalyzes the system as having only two distinctive tone levels, with the low tone being a phonetic variant of the mid tone.Syllable structure
The Awngi syllable in most cases fits the maximum syllable template CVC (C standing for a consonant, V for a vowel). This means there is only one (if any) consonant each in the syllable onset and the rhymeRhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
. Exceptions to this happen at word boundaries, where extrametrical
Extrametricality
In linguistics, extrametricality is a tool for prosodic analysis of words in a language. In certain languages, a particular segment or prosodic unit of a word may be ignored for the purposes of determining the stress structure of the word...
consonants may appear.
Gemination
In positions other than word-initial, Awngi contrasts geminateGemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
and non-geminate consonants. The contrast between geminate and non-geminate consonants does not show up for the following consonants: /ɢ, ɢʷ, t͡s, t͡ʃ, j, w, ʒ/.
Vowel harmony
Whenever a suffix containing the [+high] vowel i is added to a stem, a productive vowel harmony process is triggered. HetzronRobert Hetzron
Robert Herzog sitting third from right]]Robert Hetzron, born Herzog , was a Hungarian-born linguist known for his work on the comparative study of Afro-Asiatic languages, as well as for his study of Cushitic and Ethiopian Semitic languages.-Biography:Born in Hungary, Hetzron studied at the...
calls this process regressive vowel height assimilation
Assimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
. The vowel harmony only takes place if the underlying vowel of the last stem syllable is e. This vowel and all preceding instances of e and o will take over the feature
Distinctive feature
In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that may be analyzed in phonological theory.Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features,...
[+high], until a different vowel is encountered. Then the vowel harmony is blocked. Hetzron provides the following example: /moleqés-á/ ‘nun’ vs. /muliqís-í/ ‘monk’
Orthography
Awngi is used as Medium of Instruction from Grade 1 to 6 in primary schools of Awi ZoneAgew Awi Zone
Agew Awi is one of 10 Zones in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Agew Awi is named for the Awi sub-group of the Agaw people, some of whom live in this Zone. Agew Awi is bordered on the south by the Oromia Region, on the west by Benishangul-Gumuz Region, on the north-west by Semien Gondar Zone and on...
. It is written with an orthography based on the Ethiopian Script. Extra fidels used for Awngi are ጝ for the sound ŋ and ቕ for the sound q. The fidel ፅ is used for ts, the fidel ኽ for the sound ɢ. Various aspects of the Awngi orthography are yet to be finally decided.
The Noun
The noun is marked for numberGrammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
-cum-gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
(masculine
Masculine
Masculine or masculinity, normally refer to qualities positively associated with men.Masculine may also refer to:*Masculine , a grammatical gender*Masculine cadence, a final chord occurring on a strong beat in music...
, feminine
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
or plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
) and case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
. The nominative is unmarked for one class of nouns, or marked by -i for masculine nouns and -a for feminine nouns. Other cases are accusative, dative, genitive, locative, directional, ablative, comitative, comparative
Comparative
In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than,...
, invocative and translative. Hetzron also mentions adverbial as a case of Awngi, but an interpretation as a derivation
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
al marker seems to be more appropriate. Both number-cum-gender and case are marked through suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es to the noun stems.
The Verb
The Awngi verbal morphology has a wealth of inflectionInflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al forms. The four main tenses
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
are imperfective past, imperfective non-past, perfective past and perfective non-past. There are various other coordinate and subordinate forms which are all marked through suffixes to the verb stems. The following distinctions are maintained for Person: 1sg, 2sg, 3masc, 3fem, 1pl, 2pl, 3pl.
Hetzron demonstrated that the Awngi verbal morphology is most economically described when it is assumed that for every verb there are four distinct stems: The first stem is for 3masc, 2pl, 3pl. The second stem is for 1sg only, the third stem for 2sg and 3fem, and the fourth stem for 1pl only. These four stems need to be noted for every verb in the lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
and serve as the basis for all other verbal morphology. The stems remain the same throughout all verbal paradigms, and it is possible to predict the surface form of each paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
member with these stems and the simple tense suffixes.
Syntax
The main verb of a sentenceSentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
is always at the end. The basic word order is therefore SOV. Subordination and coordination is achieved exclusively through verbal affixation.