Sheko is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic

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...

 language family spoken in the area between Tepi and Mizan Teferi

Mizan Teferi

Mizan Tefere is a town in southern Ethiopia. The largest town, and the administrative center, of the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region , and located about 160 kilometers southwest of Jimma, Mizan Tefere has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of...

 in western 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 Sheko

Sheko (woreda)

Sheko is one of the 77 woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. It is named for the Sheko people, whose homeland lies in the eastern part of the woreda; a different ethnic group, the Me'en, dominate the southeastern part...

 district in the Bench Maji Zone

Bench Maji Zone

Bench Maji is one of the 13 Zones of the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region . Bench Maji is bordered on the south by the Ilemi Triangle, on the west by Sudan, on the northwest by the Gambela Region, on the north by Keficho Shekicho and on the east by Debub Omo...

. The 2007 census lists 38,911 speakers; the 1998 census listed 23,785 speakers, with 13,611 identified as monolinguals.

The language is notable for its retroflex consonant

Retroflex consonant

A 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...

s (Aklilu Yilma 1988), a striking feature shared with closely related Dizi and nearby (but not closely related) Bench

Bench language

Bench is a Northern Omotic language of the "Gimojan" subgroup, spoken by about 174,000 people in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira...

 (Breeze 1988). The Ethnologue lists the following linguistic features: "SOV; postpositions; genitives, articles, adjectives, numerals, relatives after noun heads; question word initial; 1 prefix, 5 suffixes; word order distinguishes subjects, objects, indirect objects; affixes indicate case of noun phrases; verb affixes mark person, number, gender of subject; passives, causatives, comparatives; CV, CVC, CVV, CV:C, CVCC; tonal, 3 tones."

Sheko, together with the Dizi and Nayi language

Nayi language

Nayi is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in western Ethiopia. The 2007 census listed 1998 census listed 7,188 speakers; the 1998 census 3,656 speakers, with 1,137 identified as monolinguals....

s, is part of a cluster of languages variously called "Maji" or "Dizoid".

External links

• 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 Sheko