| South Cushitic | |
|---|---|
| Rift | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Tanzania |
| Linguistic classification: | Afro-Asiatic
|
| Subdivisions: |
Rift
Dahalo (disputed)
Mbugu (disputed)
|
The South Cushitic or Rift languages of Tanzania belong to the Afro-Asiatic family. The most numerous is Iraqw, with half a million speakers.
Contents |
Hetzron (1980:70ff) and Ehret (1995) have suggested that the Rift languages (South Cushitic) are a part of Lowland East Cushitic. Kießling & Mous (2003) have suggested more specifically that they be linked to a Southern Lowland branch, together with Oromo, Somali, and Yaaku–Dullay. It is possible that the great lexical divergence of Rift from East Cushitic is due to Rift being partially relexified through contact with Khoisan languages, as perhaps evidenced by the unusually high frequency of the ejective affricates /tsʼ/ and /tɬʼ/, which outnumber pulmonary consonants like /p, f, w, ɬ, x/. Kießling & Mous suggest that these ejectives may be remnants of clicks from the source language.
The terms "South Cushitic" and "Rift" are not quite synonymous: The Ma'a and Dahalo languages are sometimes included in South Cushitic (e.g. Ehret 1980), but are not considered Rift. The Rift languages are named after the Great Rift Valley of Tanzania, where they are found.
| South Cushitic |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Iraqw and Gorowa are close enough for basic mutual intelligibility. Alagwa has become similar to Burunge through intense contact, and so had previously been classified as a Southern West Rift language. Aasax and Kw'adza are poorly attested and, like Dahalo, may be the result of language shift from non-Cushitic languages.