Afar_language

Afar language

Afar (Qafár af) is a Lowland East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. It is believed to have 1.5 million speakers, the Afar. The basic word order in Afar, like in other East Cushitic languages, is subject object verb. Its speakers have a literacy rate of between one and three per cent. Its closest relative is the Saho language.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of the Afar language in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Stops	voiced	b [b]		d [d]	x [ɖ]		g [ɡ]
Stops	voiceless			t [t]			k [k]
Fricatives	voiced							q [ʕ]
Fricatives	voiceless		f [f]	s [s]				c [ħ]	h [h]
Nasals		m [m]		n [n]
Approximants		w [w]		l [l]		y [j]
Tap				r [r]

Consonants which close syllables are released, e.g., akʰˈme.

Vowels and stress

* short

** a [ʌ]

**e [e]

**i [i]

**o [o]

**u [u]

* long

**aa [aː]

**ee [eː]

**ii [iː]

**oo [oː]

**uu [uː]

Sentence final vowels of affirmative verbs are aspirated (and stressed), e.g. abeh = /aˈbeʰ/ 'He did.' Sentence final vowels of negative verbs are not aspirated (nor stressed), e.g. maabinna = /ˈmaabinna/ 'He did not do.' Sentence final vowels of interrogative verbs are lengthened (and stressed), e.g. abee? = /aˈbeː/ 'Did he do?' Otherwise, stress in word-final.

Phonotactics

Syllables are of the form (C)V(V)(C). One exception is the three-consonant cluster -str-.

Writing system

Afar may be written either with the Latin alphabet or Ge'ez script.

Latin alphabet

A, B, T, S, E, C, K, X, I, D, Q, R, F, G, O, L, M, N, U, W, H, Y

a, ba, ta, sa, e, ca, ka, xa, i, da, qa, ra, fa, ga, o, la, ma, na, u, wa, ha, ya

Notes

Bibliography

Loren F. Bliese. 1976. "Afar,", The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. Ed. Lionel M. Bender. Ann Arbor, Michigan: African Studies Center, Michigan State University. Pages 133–164.
Loren F. Bliese. 1981. A generative grammar of Afar. Summer Institute of Linguistics publications in linguistics vol. 65. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics & The University of Texas at Arlington.
J.G. Colby. 1970. "Notes on the northern dialect of the Afar language," Journal of Ethiopian Studies 8:1–8.
R.J. Hayward and Enid M. Parker. 1985. Afar-English-French dictionary with Grammatical Notes in English. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Richard J. Hayward. 1998. "Qafar (West Cushitic)," Handbook of Morphology. Ed. A. Spencer & A. Zwicky. Oxford: Blackwell. Pages 624-647.
Didier Morin. 1997. Poésie traditionnelle des Afars. Langues et cultures africaines, 21 / SELAF vol. 363. Paris/Louvain: Peeters.
Enid M. Parker. 2006. English-Afar Dictionary. Washington DC: Dunwoody Press.
Rainer M. Voigt. 1975. "Bibliographie des Saho-Afar," Africana Marburgensia 8:53–63.