Wolf Leslau

The Influence of Sidamo on the Ethiopic Languages of Gurage

The Semitic languages of Ethiopia1 occupy a geographical domain in which Cushitic was and still is employed.2 When the Semites of South Arabia conquered Ethiopia,3 they imposed their Semitic language on this Cushitic domain. A stage of bilingualism followed, which still endures. The Cushitic group lost ground, most probably because of the political prestige of the conquering Semites, but not without exerting a great influence on the structure of the Semitic languages. In fact, the Semitic languages of Ethiopia are in some respects quite far removed from the typical Semitic pattern. Some of these differences are no doubt due to the internal development of Semitic in Ethiopia; others may be inherited from the Semitic group that came from South Arabia, concerning which we are not sufficiently informed; but many of them are certainly a result of Cushitic influ-

An Ethiopian Argot of People Possessed By a Spirit

The official religion in Ethiopia is Christianity, a part of the Ethiopian population are Moslems, others, called Falasha, are of Jewish faith, still others are pagans. Whatever their religious beliefs, Ethiopians have in common a belief in the spirit called zar. The name is of non-Semitic origin, probably derived from the name of the supreme divinity of the pagan Cushites, the God-Heaven called in Agau gar , and in Sidamo languages: Kaffa yarō , Buoro darō . This ancient pagan god is regarded in christianized Abyssinia as a malevolent genius. Although the official church, Christian or Moslem, condemns the belief in zar and the practices connected with it, the current opinion is that everyone ‘has a zar’.

South-East Semitic (Ethiopic and South-Arabic)

IT IS GENERALLY admitted that Ethiopic and South-Arabic form a dialectal unity within the Semitic languages,2 but the problem has not yet been examined in its entirety.3 I plan here to examine this problem in detail and to produce proofs for the dialectal unity of both groups. I shall cite above all the points common to Ethiopic and SouthArabic to the exclusion of the other languages; only the few features which also appear in Akkadian will be mentioned here.4 (Some of the features occur only in one or more languages, not in the group as a whole.) This article will consider the phonology, the morphology and the vocabulary.

Hypothesis on a Proto-Semitic Marker of the Imperfect in Gurage

THERE 1 are several Ethiopian languages that use different forms for the imperfect (present-future) in the main clause and in the subordinate clause. These languages are: Amharic, Argobba, Harari, and in the Gurage cluster: Selti-WolaneZway, Muher, Gogot and Soddo.2 In these languages the simple imperfect is used for the subordinate clause (and also for the negative clause), and the compound imperfect is used for the main clause. Note that the imperfect expresses the present-future in nearly all the Ethiopian languages.3 The inflection of the simple imperfect is basically the same in all the Ethiopian languages. For the benefit of the Semitist I am giving below as an example the forms of the simple imperfect of Amharic. The forms are:

The Farmer in Chaha Song

The songs presented here were collected for me by Walda Sanbat Banti. In my experience of collecting linguistic material in Ethiopia, Walda Sanbat deserves special mention. He is about twenty years old, a speaker of Gyeto which is a slight variant of Chaha. When I asked Walda Sanbat whether he would be willing to work with me on the Gyeto vocabulary, he readily agreed in terms that I at first considered rather boastful. He told me indeed that he was the most knowledgeable man in the dialect of Gyeto, a statement that I did not hear too often from my Ethiopian informants. The truth of the matter is that Walda Sanbat was the best informant I encountered in my linguistic work in Ethiopia. Not only did he know his language admirably well, but he was also a born field-worker. Without my prompting, he brought me all kinds of plants, cereals, and grasses and gave me their native names. He knew how to illustrate difficult terms with appropriate gestures and stories which explained the difficult word in context. Thus, having noticed his ability as a fieldworker, I asked him to collect Chaha songs dealing with any subject. Here again he showed that he knew the technique of a professional. When he presented me with the bill agreed upon in advance, he had added to it an item for which I gladly paid. Indeed, on several occasions he had found it necessary to offer the singer a bottle of native beer to put him in the mood to recite the song. So it was that he brought back to me at Addis Ababa a considerable collection of Chaha songs.

Äsät , The Soul of the Gurage

HE title of the present article is taken from a Chaha sentence given below that describes the importance of the dsdt in the life of the Gurage, whose country is situated in the south-west of Addis Ababa. Indeed the dsat, or the banana-like plant, known as Ensete edulis,I provides the staple food of the Gurage diet.2 The root, the stem of the leaves, and the trunk provide substance for bread; the leaves serve as wrapping material, as base-stands for pots, as load-carriers, and as fuel; the dried leaves are made into small plates for serving chopped meat; and the fibre serves as rope. For some of the Gurage dialects I collected as many as thirty names for the different kinds of dsdt, some of these kinds being used as medicines for various forms of illness.3 The dsdt is a frequently recurring theme in the Gurage folklore, folktales, proverbs, and riddles.4 In the present article two Gurage describe the importance of the dsdt and its cultivation. The first description was given by Sahle Sellasie Wolde Mariam in the dialect of Chaha (Caha);5 the second description was given by Habte Sahle Mariam in the dialect of Eaa.6 These two dialects belong to the Western group of Gurage. The texts were written in the Amharic alphabet. They were then read to me and I transcribed them phonetically. I wish to express my thanks to my two young Gurage friends.