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Three Berta Dialects in Western Ethiopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Extract

During my travels in Western Ethiopia in 1928 I collected some linguistic and ethnographical information on the peoples locally known (in Sudan Arabic) collected some linguisticas Beni Shangul. They now inhabit the region south of the Blue Nile and east of the former Sudan province of Dar Fung. Their eastern limit in Ethiopian territory is usually indicated as the River Dabus (or Yabus); but some scattered groups of Negro tribes, probably akin to the Beni Shangul, live east of the Dabus as far as the confluence of the River Didessa with the Blue Nile.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1947

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References

page 158 note 1 It is uncertain, in my opinion, whether the name Beni Shangul is derived (in Arabic) from ‘Shānqǐllā’, which is the Ethiopic word for ‘Negro’, or whether the name ‘Shānqǐllā’ itself is not rather an Ethiopic loan-word derived from the Sudan Arabic ‘Shanqūl’ (the regular plural of ‘Shanqūl’ in Arabic is, of course, ‘Shanāqilah’). It is possible, as often happens in many languages, that the proper name of a single people has been generalized and used to denote a whole category of mankind or a social class.

page 158 note 2 The River Dabus, according to Conti Rossini, is the traditional boundary between the Sudanese and the Ethiopians. Cf. Rossini, C. Conti, Popoli dell' Etiopia Occidentals, R.R.A.L. sc. mor., 1920, p. 234Google Scholar.

page 158 note 3 Etiopia Occidentals, vol. ii, Rome, 1933, pp. 11l12.Google Scholar

page 158 note 4 It should be noted that the Ethiopian Berta call themselves Xojalee (or Hoyalee). They are called by the neighbouring Galla tribes Joogalee, and by the Abyssinians (in Amharic) Arab (i.e. Arabs), as they normally use Arabic as their second language.

page 159 note 1 Note on the ejective consonants:

c' is like the Sidama, Galla, and Ethiopic (Semitic) ƃƃƃ č̣;

k' is like the Sidama, Galla, and Ethiopic (Semitic) Φ q;

t' is like the Sidama, Galla, and Ethiopic (Semitic) Μ ṭ;

ts' is like the Sidama, Galla, and Ethiopic (Semitic) ṣ.

page 159 note 2 d is a retroflex plosive without glottal closure, as in Somali.

page 159 note 3 θ is the English th as in ‘thousand’; δ is the English th, as in ‘they’.

page 159 note 4 γ is a velar fricative, articulated further back than the Arabic

page 161 note 1 According to the law general in Cushitic Ianguage: ‘long vowel+consonant = short vowel+ doubled consonant’, moosoo may be assumed to correspond to an archaic ‘mosso’.

page 163 note 1 In R. dialect pronounced wol.

page 164 note 1 Etiopia Occidentale, vol. ii.

page 165 note 1 Pronounced with close e as opposed to open e in eer, milk. This is the only example of its kind recorded.

page 168 note 1 Pronounced with close e (see note on p. 165).

page 169 note 1 I am much indebted to Miss M. A. Bryan for revising my manuscript and to Dr. A. N. Tucker for his helpful suggestions.