Cushitic languages

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Categories: Afro-Asiatic languages | Cushitic languages

Cushitic
Geographic distribution:	Horn of Africa
Genetic classification:	Afro-Asiatic Cushitic
Subdivisions:	Beja Central Cushitic group East Cushitic group South Cushitic group
ISO 639-2:	`cus`

The Cushitic languages are a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic languages, named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Semitic. They are spoken in the Horn of Africa. The most prominent language is Oromo with about 25 million speakers, followed by Somali (in Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya) with about 15 million speakers, Sidamo (in Ethiopia) with about 2 million speakers, Hadia with about 1.6 million native speakers, Kambata with about 1.4 million native speakers, and Afar (in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti) with about 1.5 million speakers. It is divided into the following subgroups, as per Joseph Greenberg, as modified by Harold Fleming:

Beja language (often placed outside Cushitic proper)
Central Cushitic or Agaw languages
East Cushitic languages (including Oromo, Somali, Sidamo, Saho, and Afar)
South Cushitic or Rift languages (including Aasáx, Iraqw-Alagwa, Burunge, and arguably Dahalo)

Robert Hetzron has suggested that the South Cushitic languages are a subgroup of Lowland East Cushitic. Maarten Mous, in his 24 June 2005 oration at Leiden University, has suggested more specifically that South Cushitic be linked to the Southern Lowland East Cushitic branch, together with such languages as Oromo, the Omo-Tana languages (such as Somali), and Yaaku-Dullay.

Image:Cusitas.png

Dark green: Cushitic languages

Richard Hayward, on the other hand, breaks up East Cushitic into three well-supported families: Sidamic or Highlands, a diverse Lowlands family (with Afar, Somalic, and Oromic subgroups), and Dullay (he apparently leaves Yaaku unclassified), that he believes should be considered separately when attempting to work out the internal relationships of Cushitic. This makes for a tentative four to seven branches, depending on the status of Beja, Rift, and Yaaku.

Cushitic was traditionally seen as also including the Omotic languages, then called West Cushitic, but this view has been abandoned by many, largely due to the work of Harold C. Fleming (1974) and M. Lionel Bender (1975). These scholars consider Omotic an independent branch of Afro-Asiatic. However, Zaborski (1986) and Lamberti (1991) have still kept the issue alive, showing possible evidence that Omotic can still be classified as part of Cushitic. Even Bender reconsidered the idea (1986).

Cushitic peoples

Cushitic also is used to refer to the indigenous peoples of the Horn of Africa. Ethiopid is an equivalent, though somewhat archaic, term.

References

Ethnologue entry for Cushitic languages
Bender, Marvin Lionel. 1975. Omotic: a new Afroasiatic language family. Southern Illinois University Museum series, number 3.
Bender, M. Lionel. 1986. A possible Cushomotic isomorph. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 6:149-155.
Fleming, Harold C. 1974. Omotic as an Afroasiatic family. In: Proceedings of the 5th annual conference on African linguistics (ed. by William Leben), p 81-94. African Studies Center & Department of Linguistics, UCLA.
Lamberti, Marcello. 1991. Cushitic and its classification. Anthropos 86(4/6):552-561.
Zaborski, Andrzej. 1986. Can Omotic be reclassified as West Cushitic? In Gideon Goldenberg, ed., Ethiopian Studies: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference, pp. 525-530. Rotterdam: Balkema.