Shabo language
Encyclopedia
Shabo is an endangered language
spoken by about 600 hunter-gatherers in southwestern Ethiopia
, in the westernmost part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region
. They live in three places in the Keficho Shekicho Zone
: Anderaccha
, Gecha, and Kaabo. Many of its speakers are shifting to other neighboring languages, in particular Majang language
and Shekkacho
(Mocha); its vocabulary is heavily influenced by loanword
s from both these languages, particularly Majangir, as well as Amharic
. Its classification is uncertain; it may be Nilo-Saharan
(Anbessa & Unseth 1989, Fleming 1991), or may be a language isolate
(Ehret
1995), a position which has since come to be seen as more probable. It was first reported to be a separate language by Lionel Bender
in 1977, using a wordlist gathered by the missionary Harvey Hoekstra. It is currently being studied by Daniel Aberra of Addis Ababa University
.
s from its immediate neighbors, Majang and Shakicho, are removed, the wordlists collected show a significant number of Koman words side by side with a larger number of words with no obvious external relationships. The tentative grammar so far collected offers few obviously convincing external similarities. On this basis, Fleming (1991) has classified Shabo as Nilo-Saharan and, within Nilo-Saharan, as nearest to Koman, while Ehret (1995) has argued that neither Nilo-Saharan nor Afro-Asiatic present any convincing similarities, seeing the Koman words as early loans and saying that "once the evidence of these influences is identified and separated out, there is little else to suggest that Shabo might belong to the Nilo-Saharan family." He thus regards it as an African
isolate. Anbessa & Unseth consider it Nilo-Saharan, but present little by way of argument for their position, and no detail on its position within the family. Schnoebelen (2009) in his phylogenetic
analysis agrees with Ehret that Shabo is best treated as an isolate, but does not exclude the possibility of contradicting evidence gained from applying the comparative method
(which still needs to be done). Blench (2010), maintains that Shabo does pattern with the Nilo-Saharan family.
Consonants in parenthesis are not entirely phonemic, according to Teferra (1995): and [f] are in free variation
and [ʃ], and sometimes also [c], [ɟ], and [ʒ], are in free variation, as in Majang; Teferra speculatively links this to the traditional practice of removing the lower incisor
s of men. and [k] occasionally alternate.
Implosive consonants are common in languages of the area, but ejective consonants are not found in Majang.
Consonant length is found in several words, such as walla "goat", kutti "knee"; however, it is often unstable.
Teferra tentatively postulates 9 vowels: /i/ /ɨ/ /u/ /e/ /ə/ /o/ /ɛ/ /a/ /ɔ/, possibly with further distinctions based on advanced tongue root
. Five of these, /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/, have long counterparts. Occasionally final vowels are deleted, shortening medial vowels: e.g. deego or deg "crocodile".
The syllable structure is (C)V(C); all consonants except /pʼ/ and /tʼ/ can occur syllable-finally.
The language is tonal, but its tonology is unclear. Two minimal pair
s are cited by Teferra 1995, including há "kill" versus hà "meat".
The pronouns "I" and "he" have been compared to Surmic languages
; however, there are also resemblances in the pronouns with the Omotic
Gunza language (Bender 1983.) The gender distinctions made are unusual for Africa.
is by adding the particle be after the verb or noun negated: gumu be "(it is) not (a) stick", ʔam be-gea "he will not come" ("come not-?"). Negative forms in b are widespread in Nilo-Saharan
and Afro-Asiatic languages
.
There appears to be a causative
suffix -ka: mawo hoop, "water boiled" > upa mawo hoop-ka "(a) man boiled water".
A particle git (infinitive
? subjunctive?) marks the verb in constructions with "want": moopa git inɗeet ("sit git want") "I want to sit".
Much of the verbal morphology is uncertain; there appears to be a 3rd person singular future suffix -g- (e.g. inɗage t'a-g "he will eat") and a 2nd person plural suffix -ɗe (e.g. subuk maakɛle kak t'a-ɗe "You (pl.) ate corn", "you-pl. corn past? eat-2nd-pl.")
Ehret (1995) mentions the following tense-aspect suffixes:
There is a suffix -ka which sometimes mark the direct object, e.g. upa kaan-ik ye "a man saw a dog" ("man dog saw"), but also has many other uses. A similar suffix is found in many Eastern Sudanic languages
, but there is it specifically accusative.
Case markings mentioned by Ehret (1995) include:
and 20 is iŋk upa kor ("one person complete") cf. Majang rumer iɗit 'one person complete'.
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 about 600 hunter-gatherers in southwestern 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...
, in the westernmost part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region
Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region
Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia. It was formed from the merger of the former Regions 7-11 following the 1994 elections...
. They live in three places in the Keficho Shekicho Zone
Keficho Shekicho Zone
Keficho Shekicho is a Zone in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region . While in their latest population estimates the Central Statistical Agency includes it as a single Zone, the list of second administrative level bodies maintained by the United Nations Geographic...
: Anderaccha
Anderaccha
Anderaccha is a town in southwestern Ethiopia. Located in the Keficho Shekicho Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, at the confluence of the Guma River with the Gichey, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 1629 meters above sea level...
, Gecha, and Kaabo. Many of its speakers are shifting to other neighboring languages, in particular Majang language
Majang language
The Majang language is spoken by the Majangir of Ethiopia. Although it is a member of the Surmic cluster, this language is the most isolated one in that cluster . A language survey has shown that dialect variation from north to south is minor and does not seriously impede communication...
and Shekkacho
Shekkacho language
Shekkacho is an Afro-Asiatic Omotic language, spoken in the north Kafa region of southwest Ethiopia, in the Maasha area. It is closely related to Kafa.-Bibliography:...
(Mocha); its vocabulary is heavily influenced by loanword
Loanword
A 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 from both these languages, particularly Majangir, as well as 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...
. Its classification is uncertain; it may be Nilo-Saharan
Nilo-Saharan languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet...
(Anbessa & Unseth 1989, Fleming 1991), or may be a language isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
(Ehret
Christopher Ehret
Christopher Ehret , a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, is a writer on African history and African historical linguistics, particularly known for his efforts to correlate linguistic taxonomy and reconstruction with the archeological record...
1995), a position which has since come to be seen as more probable. It was first reported to be a separate language by Lionel Bender
Lionel Bender (linguist)
Marvin Lionel Bender was an American author and co-author of several books, publications and essays regarding African languages, particularly from Ethiopia and Sudan. He retired from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He did extensive work in all four language families of Ethiopia: Semitic,...
in 1977, using a wordlist gathered by the missionary Harvey Hoekstra. It is currently being studied by Daniel Aberra of Addis Ababa University
Addis Ababa University
Addis Ababa University is a university in Ethiopia. It was originally named "University College of Addis Ababa" at its founding, then renamed for the former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I in 1962, receiving its current name in 1975.Although the university has six of its seven campuses within...
.
Classification
Once the many loanwordLoanword
A 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 from its immediate neighbors, Majang and Shakicho, are removed, the wordlists collected show a significant number of Koman words side by side with a larger number of words with no obvious external relationships. The tentative grammar so far collected offers few obviously convincing external similarities. On this basis, Fleming (1991) has classified Shabo as Nilo-Saharan and, within Nilo-Saharan, as nearest to Koman, while Ehret (1995) has argued that neither Nilo-Saharan nor Afro-Asiatic present any convincing similarities, seeing the Koman words as early loans and saying that "once the evidence of these influences is identified and separated out, there is little else to suggest that Shabo might belong to the Nilo-Saharan family." He thus regards it as an African
African languages
There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
isolate. Anbessa & Unseth consider it Nilo-Saharan, but present little by way of argument for their position, and no detail on its position within the family. Schnoebelen (2009) in his phylogenetic
Phylogenetics
In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices...
analysis agrees with Ehret that Shabo is best treated as an isolate, but does not exclude the possibility of contradicting evidence gained from applying the comparative method
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
(which still needs to be done). Blench (2010), maintains that Shabo does pattern with the Nilo-Saharan family.
Sounds
The consonants are:| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
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).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | (p) b | t d | (tʃ) (dʒ) | k ɡ | ʔ |
| Implosives | ɓ | ɗ | |||
| Ejectives | pʼ | tʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | |
| Fricatives | f | (s) sʼ | (ʃ) | ||
| Approximants | w | l | j | ||
| Nasals 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 | ||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... s |
r |
Consonants in parenthesis are not entirely phonemic, according to Teferra (1995): and [f] are in free variation
Free variation
Free 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...
and [ʃ], and sometimes also [c], [ɟ], and [ʒ], are in free variation, as in Majang; Teferra speculatively links this to the traditional practice of removing the lower incisor
Incisor
Incisors are the first kind of tooth in heterodont mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and mandible below.-Function:...
s of men. and [k] occasionally alternate.
Implosive consonants are common in languages of the area, but ejective consonants are not found in Majang.
Consonant length is found in several words, such as walla "goat", kutti "knee"; however, it is often unstable.
Teferra tentatively postulates 9 vowels: /i/ /ɨ/ /u/ /e/ /ə/ /o/ /ɛ/ /a/ /ɔ/, possibly with further distinctions based on advanced tongue root
Advanced tongue root
In phonetics, advanced tongue root and retracted tongue root, abbreviated ATR or RTR, are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in West Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mongolian...
. Five of these, /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/, have long counterparts. Occasionally final vowels are deleted, shortening medial vowels: e.g. deego or deg "crocodile".
The syllable structure is (C)V(C); all consonants except /pʼ/ and /tʼ/ can occur syllable-finally.
The language is tonal, but its tonology is unclear. Two minimal pair
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
s are cited by Teferra 1995, including há "kill" versus hà "meat".
Syntax
Basic word order is subject–object–verb; there are postpositions rather than prepositions.Pronouns
Shabo has an unusually complex pronoun system for Africa:| person | singular | dual | plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.masc | tiŋ | antʃ | yin |
| 1.fem | taŋa | ann | yafu |
| 2.masc | kuku | tʃitʃak | ʃitalak |
| 2.fem | kuŋɡu | ʃiyak | ʃubak |
| 3.masc | yu | utʃa | utalo |
| 3.fem | uŋa | oya | odda |
The pronouns "I" and "he" have been compared to Surmic languages
Surmic languages
The Surmic Languages are a branch of the Eastern Sudanic language family.-Languages:*North: Majang *South**Southeast: Kwegu , Me'en, Mursi, Suri...
; however, there are also resemblances in the pronouns with the 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...
Gunza language (Bender 1983.) The gender distinctions made are unusual for Africa.
Verbs
NegationNegation
In logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified...
is by adding the particle be after the verb or noun negated: gumu be "(it is) not (a) stick", ʔam be-gea "he will not come" ("come not-?"). Negative forms in b are widespread in Nilo-Saharan
Nilo-Saharan languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet...
and 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...
.
There appears to be a causative
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
suffix -ka: mawo hoop, "water boiled" > upa mawo hoop-ka "(a) man boiled water".
A particle git (infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
? subjunctive?) marks the verb in constructions with "want": moopa git inɗeet ("sit git want") "I want to sit".
Much of the verbal morphology is uncertain; there appears to be a 3rd person singular future suffix -g- (e.g. inɗage t'a-g "he will eat") and a 2nd person plural suffix -ɗe (e.g. subuk maakɛle kak t'a-ɗe "You (pl.) ate corn", "you-pl. corn past? eat-2nd-pl.")
Ehret (1995) mentions the following tense-aspect suffixes:
- -gg imperfective
- -e perfective
- -kkus present perfect
- no affix: imperativeImperative moodThe imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
Nouns
Plurals are optional; when used, they are formed with a word yɛɛro afterwards.There is a suffix -ka which sometimes mark the direct object, e.g. upa kaan-ik ye "a man saw a dog" ("man dog saw"), but also has many other uses. A similar suffix is found in many Eastern Sudanic languages
Eastern Sudanic languages
Ehret 2001 [1984]Ehret, published in 2001 but circulating in manuscript form since at least 1984, calls the family "Eastern Sahelian", and idiosyncratically adds the Kuliak languages and Berta, which Bender assigns to higher-level branches of Nilo-Saharan, and reassigns Nyima to the southern branch...
, but there is it specifically accusative.
Case markings mentioned by Ehret (1995) include:
- -ti ablative
- -uk, -ik instrumentalInstrumentalAn instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
- -ke, -e genitive
- -kak, -ka, -k accusativeAccusative caseThe accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
Postpositions
Shabo uses postpositions after nouns, e.g.: upa mana pond ɗɛpik moi "a man sat on a rock" (lit. "man rock on ? sat").Numbers
The number system, as given by Tefera and Unseth, is as follows, with Majang equivalents to show how much is borrowed:- iŋki (Majang om-oŋ)
- bap (pɛɛy)
- jiita (jiit)
- aŋan (aŋan)
- tuul (tuul)
- tulu(ŋ/m) (tuul a om)
- tulikakiŋki (possibly error for 6?) (tuul a pɛɛy)
- tunajiita (tuul a jiit)
- tulaaŋan (tuul a aŋan)
- bapif (bap if = "two hands") (aarn = 'two hands')
- mabafifiŋki (aarn a om)
and 20 is iŋk upa kor ("one person complete") cf. Majang rumer iɗit 'one person complete'.
Sample sentences
- mawo hoop: water boiled
- upa mawo hoop-ka: A man boiled water (lit. "man water boiled-caus.")
- gumu be: it is not a stick (lit. "stick not".)
- ma gumu: it is a stick (lit. "stick ?")
- dɛrbakan kaal nu ɗe-be: Derbakan does not have a dog (lit. "Derbakan dog poss.? ?:not")
- dɛrbakan kaal nu yaaŋk: Derbakan has a dog (lit. "Derbakan dog poss.? positive?")
- ʔam be-gea: he will not come (lit. "come not-?")
- inɗigi am-k: he will come (lit. "? come ?")
- tin-ta be-ge: he will not eat (lit. "? eat not ?")
- inɗage t'a-g: he will eat (lit. "? eat ?")
- paar bap: two snakes (lit. "snake two")
- upa kaan-ik ye: a man saw a dog (lit. "man dog-obj. saw")
- kaan upa-k ye: a dog saw a man (lit. "dog man-obj. saw")
- koto upa dɛpik ye: a woman saw a man (lit. "woman man tense? saw")
- gom c'uwa t'a: fire burned wood (lit. "fire wood ate")
- cu ɗɛpik ibalabiyan-an ɗe (word divisions uncertain): you (pl.) came (lit. "you(pl.) ?:? come-2pl.")
- subuk maakɛle kak t'a-ɗe: you (pl.) ate corn (lit. "you(pl.) corn aux? eat-2pl.")
- wo ka git inɗeet: I want to drink (lit. "drink ? infin.? want")
- moopa git inɗeet: I want to sit (lit. "sit ? infin.? want")
- abiyaŋge: they came
- upa kakaak jaal kaki ye ʔam: I saw the man who came yesterday (lit. "man came yesterday ? saw ?")
- upa mana pond ɗɛpik moi: a man sat on a rock (lit. "man rock on aux.? sat")