Sheko language

Sheko is an Omotic language 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 2007 census lists 38,911 speakers; the 1998 census listed 23,785 speakers, with 13,611 identified as monolinguals.[3]

Sheko
Native toEthiopia
RegionBench Maji Zone, Kafa region
Native speakers
39,000 (2007 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3she
Glottologshek1245
ELPSheko[2]

Sheko, together with the Dizi and Nayi languages, is part of a cluster of languages variously called "Maji" or "Dizoid".

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).

Phonology

Apart from the above-mentioned retroflex consonants, the phonology of Sheko is characterized by a total 28 consonant phonemes,[4] five long vowels and six short vowels,[5] plus four phonemic tone levels.[6]

Consonants

Hellenthal (2010, p. 45) lists the following consonant phonemes of Sheko:

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar		 Retroflex Velar Glottal
Plosive Ejective pʼ tʼ kʼ
Voiceless t k ʔ
Voiced b d ɡ
Affricate Ejective tsʼ tʃʼ tʂʼ
Voiceless ts tʃ tʂ
Fricative Voiceless f s ʃ ʂ h
Voiced z ʒ ʐ
Nasal m n
tap r [ɾ]
Approximant w j

Unlike other Dizoid languages, Sheko has no contrast between /r/ and /l/.[7] Consonants are rarely geminated,[8] and there is a syllabic nasal /n̩/[9]

Vowels

Hellenthal (2010, p. 56) lists the following long and short vowels of Sheko: /i/, /ii/, /e/, /ee/ /ə/, /a/, /aa/, /u/, /uu/, /o/, /oo/.

Tones

Sheko is one of very few languages in Africa that have four distinct phonemic tone levels.[10] Tone distinguishes meaning both in the lexicon and in the grammar, particularly to distinguish persons in the pronominal system.[11]

Grammar

The Ethnologue lists the following morphosyntactic 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."

Notes
  1. Ethiopia 2007 Census
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Sheko.
  3. Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  4. Hellenthal 2010, p. 45
  5. Hellenthal 2010, p. 56
  6. Hellenthal 2010, p. 111
  7. Hellenthal 2010, p. 47
  8. Hellenthal 2010, p. 47
  9. Hellenthal 2010, p. 58
  10. Hellenthal 2010, p. 111
  11. Hellenthal 2010, p. 113

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.
  • Hellenthal, Anneke Christine. 2009. Handout on Sheko subject clitics. download
  • Hellenthal, Anneke Christine (2010). A grammar of Sheko (Ph.D. thesis). Leiden University. hdl:1887/15692.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Yilma, Aklilu (1988). The phonology of Sheko (MA thesis). Addis Ababa University.
  • Yilma, Aklilu, Ralph Siebert and Kati Siebert. 2002. "Sociolinguistic survey of the Omotic languages Sheko and Yem." SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-053.
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