Wolaytta language

Wolaytta
Ometo
Spoken in	Ethiopia
Region	Wolaytta region, Lake Abaya area
Native speakers	1.63 million  (2007 census)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Omotic North Gonga–Gimojan Gimojan Ometo–Gimira Ometo Central Wolaytta
Writing system	Ethiopic
Language codes
ISO 639-2	wal
ISO 639-3	wal

Wolaytta^[2] is an Omotic language spoken in the Wolaita Zone and some parts of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region of Ethiopia. The number of speakers of this language is estimated at 2,000,000 (1991 UBS); it is the native language of the Welayta people.^[3] The estimates of the population vary greatly because it is not agreed where the boundaries of the language are.

There are conflicting claims about how widely Wolaytta is spoken. The Ethnologue identifies one smaller dialect region: Zala. Some hold that Melo, Oyda, and Gamo-Gofa-Dawro are also dialects, but most authorities, including Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 now list these as separate languages. The different communities of speakers also recognize them as separate languages.^[4]

Wolaytta has existed in written form since the 1940s, when the Sudan Interior Mission first devised a system for writing it. The writing system was later revised by a team led by Dr. Bruce Adams. They finished the New Testament in 1981 and the entire Bible in 2002. It was one of the first languages the Derg selected for their literacy campaign (1979–1991), before any other southern languages. Welaytta pride in their written language led to a fiercely hostile response in 1998 when the Ethiopian government distributed textbooks written in Wegagoda – an artificial language based on amalgamating Wolaytta with several closely related languages. As a result the textbooks in Wegagoda were withdrawn and teachers returned to ones in Wolaytta.^[5]

Contents 1 Lexical similarity with 2 Geographical names 3 Language status 4 Phonology 4.1 Consonants 4.2 Vowels 5 Grammar 5.1 Word order 6 Notes 7 Further reading 8 External links 9 See also

Lexical similarity with

• Gamo 79% to 93%
• Gofa 84%
• Kullo 80%
• Korze 80%
• Koorete 48%
• Male 43%

Geographical names

Balta, Borodda, Ganta, Otschollo, Uba.

Language status

The language is the official language in the Welayta zone of Ethiopia. The Ethnologue cites statistics that 5% to 25% of the population are literate in this language. Portions of the Bible were produced in 1934, the New Testament in 1981, and the entire Bible in 2002.

Phonology

Consonants

Wakasa (2008) gives the following consonant phonemes for Wolaytta. Items in <> show Wakasa's practical spelling of the sounds in question:

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m, m' <M>	n, n' <N>
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ <7>
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ <T>, ɗ (?) <D>		kʼ <K>
Affricate	voiceless			tʃ <c>
	voiced			dʒ <j>
	ejective			tʃʼ <C>
Fricative	voiceless		s	ʃ <sh>		h
	voiced		z	ʒ <zh>
Approximant			l l' <L>	j <y>	w
Rhotic			r

Two consonants require further discussion. The sound written <nh> is described by Wakasa (2008:44) as a 'nasalized glottal fricative'; it is said to be extremely, rare, occurring in only one common noun, an interjection, and two proper names. The status of the sound written <D> is apparently in dispute; Adams (1983:48) and Lamberti and Sottile (1997:23, 25-26) claim that it is implosive, thus presumably /ɗ/. Wakasa (2008:62) denies that this consonant is implosive, and calls it 'glottalized'.

Vowels

Wolaytta has five vowels, which appear both long and short:

	Front	Central	Back
High	i, iː		u, uː
Mid	e, eː		o, oː
Low		a, aː

Grammar

Word order

Like other Omotic languages, the Wolaytta language has the basic word order SOV (subject–object–verb), as shown in the following example (Wakasa 2008:1041):

na7-ái	7iss-í	maTááp-aa	shamm-íis.
child-NOM.M.SG.	one-OBL.	book-ABS.M.SG.	buy-PF.3M.SG.
'The boy bought a book.'

It has postpositional phrases, which precede the verb (Wakasa 2008:1042):

ta-7ish-ái	maTááp-aa	ba-lágg-iya-ppe	taLL-íis.
my-brother-NOM.M.SG.	book-ABS.M.SG.	his:own-friend-OBL.M.SG.-from	borrow-PF.3M.SG.
'My brother borrowed a book from his friend.'

Nouns used adjectivally precede the nouns that they modify (Wakasa 2008:1044)

ló77-o	dé7-uwa	de7-áis.
good-OBL	life-ABS.M.SG	live-IMPF.1SG.
'I live a good life.'

Numerals precede the nouns that they quantify over (Wakasa 2008:1045)

na7-ái	naa77-ú	máCC-a	7as-atá	be7-íis.
child-NOM.M.SG	two-OBL	female-OBL	people-ABS.PL	see-PF.3M.SG.
'The boy saw two women.' Notes ^ Ethiopia 2007 Census ^ Other transliterations include Wolaitta, Wolaita, and Wolayta or Welayta. Borodda; Uba; Ometo; Wolayitigna; and Wolaitatuwa ^ Wolaytta entry in Ethnologue ^ Abebe 2002 ^ Sarah Vaughan, "Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia" (University of Edinburgh: Ph.D. Thesis, 2003), pp. 2550- 258 Further reading Abebe, Alemayehu. 2002. "Sociolinguistic survey report on the Ometo dialect of Ethiopia, part II."‭ SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-012. Adams, Bruce A. 1983. A Tagmemic Analysis of the Wolaitta Language. Unpublished PhD. thesis, University of London. Adams, Bruce. 1990. Name nouns in Wolaitta. In Omotic Language Studies ed. by 406-412. London: School of Oriental and African Studies. Lamberti, Marcello and Roberto Sottile. 1997. "The Wolaytta Language". In Studia Linguarum Africae Orientalis 6: pp. 79–86. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe. Ohman, Walter and Hailu Fulass. 1976. Welamo. In Language in Ethiopia, ed. by M. L. Bender, C. Bowen, R. Cooper, and C. Ferguson, pp. 155–164. Oxford University Press. Wakasa, Motomichi. 2008. A Descriptive Study of the Modern Wolaytta Language. Ph.D. thesis. University of Tokyo. External links World Atlas of Language Structures information on Wolaytta See also Welayta