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Wikipedia / Kafa language

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

  • /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.

Vowels

  • /a/ may also have an allophone of [ə].

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.

References

  1. Bibliography

Further reading

  • Aberra, Daniel. 2019. Kafa English Amharic Dictionary. Distributed via the Web.

  • 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.