Kafa or Kefa (Kafi noono) is a North Omotic language spoken in Ethiopia at the Keffa Zone. It is part of the Ethiopian Language Area, with SOV word order, ejective consonants, etc.
A collection of proverbs in the language has been published by Mesfin Wodajo.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | gem. | plain | gem. | plain | gem. | plain | gem. | |||
| Plosive/Affricate | voiceless | p | pː | t | tː | tʃ | tʃː | k | kː | ʔ |
| voiced | b | bː | d | dː | dʒ | dʒː | g | ɡː | ||
| ejective | pʼ | pːʼ | tʼ | tːʼ | tʃʼ | tʃːʼ | kʼ | kːʼ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sː | ʃ | h | ||||
| voiced | z | |||||||||
| Nasal | m | mː | n | nː | ||||||
| Rhotic | ɾ | |||||||||
| Approximant | w | l | lː | j | ||||||
- /f/ may also be heard as [ɸ] in free variation.
- /b/ can be heard as a bilabial approximant [β̞] in intervocalic positions.
- /t/ can be realized as [ts] in word-final position.2
Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː |
| Mid | ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː |
| Open | a aː |
- /a/ may also have an allophone of [ə].3
Manjo
Within the Kafa culture there is a caste of traditional hunters called the Manja/Manjo 'hunters'. They may once have spoken a different language. However, Leikola has shown that currently they speak Kafa with a number of distinctive words and constructions that they use, reinforcing the distinctions between themselves and the larger Kafa society.4
Further reading
- Brockelmann, Carl (1950): Zur Grammatik der Kafa-Sprache. in: Brockelmann, Carl (ed.): Abbessinische Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Leipzig. pp 40–60.
- Cerulli, Enrico (1951), Studi etiopici. Vol. IV: La lingua Caffina. Roma: Istituto Per L'oriente.
- Fleming, Harold C. (1976), "Kefa (Gonga) Languages", in The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. Bender, M. L. (ed.)
External links
- World Atlas of Language Structures information on Kefa
References
2012. Functions and Formal and Stylistic Features of Kafa Proverbs: Functional and Structural Approach. Lambert Academic Publishing. ↩
Theil, Rolf (2007). Kafa phonology. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2: DeGruyter Mouton. pp. 193–216.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) /wiki/Template:Cite_book ↩
Theil, Rolf (2007). Kafa phonology. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 2: DeGruyter Mouton. pp. 193–216.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) /wiki/Template:Cite_book ↩
Leikola, Kirsi. 2014. Talking Manjo: Linguistic repertoires as means of negotiating marginalization. University of Helsinki: PhD dissertation. ↩