Sheko language

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Sheko
Spoken in:	Ethiopia
Total speakers:	23,785, 13,611 monolinguals (1998)
Language family:	Afro-Asiatic  Omotic   North    Maji     Sheko
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	–
ISO 639-3:	she
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Sheko is an Omotic langauge of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the area between Tepi and Mizan Teferi in western Ethiopia, in the Sheko district in the Bench Maji Zone. The 1998 census listed 23,785 speakers, with 13,611 identified as monolinguals. ^[1]

The language is notable for its retroflex consonants (Aklilu Yilma 1988), a striking feature shared with closely related Dizi and nearby (but not closely related) Bench (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 languages, is part of a cluster of languages variously called "Maji" or "Dizoid".

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Breeze, Mary. 1988. "Phonological features of Gimira and Dizi."‭ In Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko (eds.), Cushitic - Omotic: papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic languages, Cologne, January 6-9, 1986, 473-487. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
• http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=she
• Yilma, Aklilu. 1988. The phonology of Sheko. Addis Ababa University MA thesis.
• Yilma, Aklilu, Ralph Siebert and Kati Siebert. 2002. "Sociolinguistic survey of the Omotic languages Sheko and Yem."‭ SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-053. http://www.sil.org/silesr/abstract.asp?ref=2002-053