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Gurage Language Facts
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| Extinct: no |
| Family: Afro-Asiatic |
| Branch: Semitic |
| Continent: Africa |
| Country: Ethiopia |
| Region: EAST: About 150 kms. south of Addis Ababa. SODDO: Gurage, Kambaata, Hadiyya Region, just southwest of Addis Ababa. WEST: West Gurage Region. |
| Countries Where Spoken: EAST: 827,764 mother tongue speakers, 89,042 second language speakers, 900,348 in the ethnic group (1998 census). SODDO: 254,682 mother tongue speakers, 60,538 second language speakers, 363,867 in the ethnic group (1998 census). 4,000 Gogot. WEST: 798,202 mother tongue speakers, 58,694 second language speakers, 1,022,089 in the ethnic group (1998 census). All Gurage languages including Soddo: 1,881,574 mother tongue speakers, 208,358 second language speakers, 2,290,274 in the ethnic group, 1,248,415 monolinguals (1998 census). |
| Countries Where Official: Ethiopia |
| Native Speakers: 1,881,574 |
| Speakers Total: 2,089,932 |
| Phrasebase members who speak this language at a native level: 0 |
| Phrasebase members who speak this language at a conversational level: 0 |
| Phrasebase members primary language they are trying to learn: 0 |
| Phrasebase members secondary language they are trying to learn: 0 |
| Three Letter Code: GRE |
| Alternative Names: KISTANE, SODDO, NORTH GURAGE, CENTRAL WEST GURAGE, GURAGIE, GOURAGHIE, GURAGUE |
| Dialects: |
| Summary: EAST: Not intelligible with West or North Gurage. 40% or less intelligible with Chaha (Central West Gurage). Zay or Mesmes may be dialects. Investigation needed: intelligibility with Zay, Mesmes. Dictionary. SOV; prepositions and postpositions; genitives, adjectives, numerals, relatives before noun heads, articles after; passives; causatives; CV, CVC; nontonal. Literacy rate in first language: Below 1%. Literacy rate in second language: 16.6%. Bible portions 1981. SODDO: Not intelligible with East Gurage or West Gurage. Soddo and Gogot may not be inherently intelligible. People along the roads have contact with Amharic; some men are partially bilingual. People in the interior are not very bilingual (B. Denboba 1989). Investigation needed: intelligibility with Gogot. SOV. Literacy rate in second language: 21.5%. Christian. WEST: R. Hetzron divides Western Gurage as follows: (a) Masqan, (b) 3-tense Gurage, (i) Central Western (Ezha, Chaha, Gumer, Gura), (ii) Peripheral Western (Gyeto, Inor (Ennemor), Engegeny, Ener). Not intelligible with East Gurage or Soddo. SOV. Literacy rate in first language: Below 1%. Literacy rate in second language: 25.3%. NT 1983. |
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