Qimant language
Encyclopedia
The Qimant language is a highly endangered language
spoken by a small and elderly fraction of the Qemant
people in Northern Ethiopia
mainly in Chilga
Woreda
in Semien Gondar Zone
between Gondar
and Metemma
.
. Other (extinct) members of this subsection are Qwara
and Kayla
. With all other Cushitic languages
Qimant belongs to the phylum of the Afro-Asiatic languages
.
people of Semien Gondar Zone
and Ethiopia
. Although the ethnic population of the Qemant was 172,327 at the 1994 census, only a very small fraction of these speak the language nowadays. All speakers live either in Chilga
woreda or in Lay Armachiho
woreda. The number of first-language speakers is 1625, the number of second language speakers 3450. All speakers of the language are older than 30 years, and more than 75% are older than 50 years. The language is no longer passed on to the next generation of speakers. Most ethnic Qemant people speak Amharic
. Qimant is not spoken in public or even at house as a means of day communication any more, but is reduced to a secret code.
, Qwara
and Qimant have been dialects of the same Western Agaw language, or were languages distinct from each other.
Continuant
s can be geminated word-medially.
s are only allowed word-medially. In loanwords from Amharic there may also be consonant-clusters within a syllable. Vowel clusters are not allowed.
s with more than two consonants are broken up by inserting the epenthetic vowel /ɨ/. Other phonological processes are nasal assimilation and devoicing
of /ɡ/ at word boundaries.
, the numbers one to nine go back to an ancient quinary
system, where the suffix /-ta/ added to the numbers two to four results in the numbers six to nine.
marking system allows for other, more marked orders. In the noun phrase
the head
noun
follows its modifiers. Numbers, however, can also follow the head noun. All kind of subordinate clauses precede the main verb of the sentence.
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
spoken by a small and elderly fraction of the Qemant
Qemant
The Qemant are a small ethnic group in Ethiopia, who, despite their close historical and ethnic relationship, should not be confused with the Beta Israel....
people in Northern 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...
mainly in Chilga
Chilga
Chilga is one of the 105 woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. It is named after its chief town Chilga , an important stopping point on the historic Gondar-Sudan trade route...
Woreda
Woreda
Woreda is an administrative division of Ethiopia , equivalent to a district . Woredas are composed of a number of Kebele, or neighborhood associations, which are the smallest unit of local government in Ethiopia...
in Semien Gondar Zone
Semien Gondar Zone
Semien Gondar is a Zone in the Ethiopian Amhara Region. This Zone is named for the city of Gondar, the capital of Ethiopia until the mid-19th century, which has often been used as a name for the 20th century province of Begemder....
between Gondar
Gondar
Gondar or Gonder is a city in Ethiopia, which was once the old imperial capital and capital of the historic Begemder Province. As a result, the old province of Begemder is sometimes referred to as Gondar...
and Metemma
Metemma
Metemma is a town in northwestern Ethiopia, on the border with Sudan. Located in the Semien Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Metemma has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 685 meters above sea level. Across the border is the corresponding Sudanese village of Gallabat...
.
Classification
The language belongs to the western subsection of the Agaw or Central Cushitic languagesCentral Cushitic languages
The Central Cushitic, or Agaw, languages are spoken by small groups in Ethiopia and, in one case, Eritrea. They form the main substratum influence on Amharic and other Ethiopian Semitic languages.-Classification:...
. Other (extinct) members of this subsection are Qwara
Qwara language
Qwara, or Qwareña , is one of two Agaw dialects formerly spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel of the Qwara area. It is a dialect of Qimant....
and Kayla
Kayla language
Kayla, or Kayliñña is one of two Agaw dialects formerly spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel . It is a dialect of Qimant. The name Kayla is sometimes also used as a cover term for both Beta Israel dialects...
. With all other Cushitic languages
Cushitic languages
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...
Qimant belongs to the phylum of the Afro-Asiatic languages
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
.
Geographic distribution and sociolinguistic situation
Qimant is the original language of the QemantQemant
The Qemant are a small ethnic group in Ethiopia, who, despite their close historical and ethnic relationship, should not be confused with the Beta Israel....
people of Semien Gondar Zone
Semien Gondar Zone
Semien Gondar is a Zone in the Ethiopian Amhara Region. This Zone is named for the city of Gondar, the capital of Ethiopia until the mid-19th century, which has often been used as a name for the 20th century province of Begemder....
and 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...
. Although the ethnic population of the Qemant was 172,327 at the 1994 census, only a very small fraction of these speak the language nowadays. All speakers live either in Chilga
Chilga
Chilga is one of the 105 woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. It is named after its chief town Chilga , an important stopping point on the historic Gondar-Sudan trade route...
woreda or in Lay Armachiho
Lay Armachiho
Lay Armachiho is one of the 105 woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. This woreda is named after "Armachiho", a province in northwestern northwestern Ethiopia along the border with Sudan and south of the Tekezé River...
woreda. The number of first-language speakers is 1625, the number of second language speakers 3450. All speakers of the language are older than 30 years, and more than 75% are older than 50 years. The language is no longer passed on to the next generation of speakers. Most ethnic Qemant people speak Amharic
Amharic language
Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
. Qimant is not spoken in public or even at house as a means of day communication any more, but is reduced to a secret code.
Dialects/Varieties
It is not clear to what extent KaylaKayla language
Kayla, or Kayliñña is one of two Agaw dialects formerly spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel . It is a dialect of Qimant. The name Kayla is sometimes also used as a cover term for both Beta Israel dialects...
, Qwara
Qwara language
Qwara, or Qwareña , is one of two Agaw dialects formerly spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel of the Qwara area. It is a dialect of Qimant....
and Qimant have been dialects of the same Western Agaw language, or were languages distinct from each other.
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... |
Palatal 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).... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | |||||
| 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 :... |
m | n | ŋ | ŋʷ | ||
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
voiceless | t | tʃ | k | kʷ | |
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ɡʷ | |
| 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... |
voiceless | f | s | ʃ | χ | χʷ |
| voiced | z | ɣ | ɣʷ | |||
| Tap | 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... |
l | j | w | |||
Continuant
Continuant
A continuant is a sound produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. That is, any sound except a stop or nasal. An affricate is considered to be a complex segment, composed of both a stop and a continuant.-See also:...
s can be geminated word-medially.
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 |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
ə | o | |
| 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... |
a |
Phonotactics
The maximum syllable structure in Qimant is CVC, which implies that consonant clusterConsonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s are only allowed word-medially. In loanwords from Amharic there may also be consonant-clusters within a syllable. Vowel clusters are not allowed.
Phonological processes
Consonant clusterConsonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s with more than two consonants are broken up by inserting the epenthetic vowel /ɨ/. Other phonological processes are nasal assimilation and devoicing
Devoicing
In phonology, voicing and devoicing are sound changes, whereby a consonant changes its type of voicing from voiceless to voiced, or vice versa, due to the influence of a phonological element in its phonological environment...
of /ɡ/ at word boundaries.
Morphology
The personal marking system distinguishes between first person singular and plural, second person singular, polite, and plural, and third person masculine, feminine and plural. On the verb, all inflectional categories are marked by suffixes. Zelealem (2003, p. 192) identifies three different aspect forms in Qimant: Perfective, Imperfective and Progressive. Like in other Central Cushitic languagesCentral Cushitic languages
The Central Cushitic, or Agaw, languages are spoken by small groups in Ethiopia and, in one case, Eritrea. They form the main substratum influence on Amharic and other Ethiopian Semitic languages.-Classification:...
, the numbers one to nine go back to an ancient quinary
Quinary
Quinary is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five fingers on either hand. The base five is stated from 0-4...
system, where the suffix /-ta/ added to the numbers two to four results in the numbers six to nine.
Syntax
The basic constituent order in Qimant, like in all other Afro-Asiatic languages of Ethiopia, is SOV. The presence of a caseGrammatical 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...
marking system allows for other, more marked orders. In the noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
the head
Phrase
In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
follows its modifiers. Numbers, however, can also follow the head noun. All kind of subordinate clauses precede the main verb of the sentence.
Vocabulary/Lexis
As a consequence of the looming language death, many items of the vocabulary are already replaced by Amharic words.External links
- World Atlas of Language StructuresWorld Atlas of Language StructuresThe 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 Kemant