On this page/Sur cette page... (hide)
The term encompasses a cluster of languages belonging to the south Ethiopic group of Semitic. There are at least three distinct Gurage languages, possibly as many as twelve (Leslau 1980). Bender (personal communication, 1983) notes that some are "as different from one another as Tigrinya and Amharic." (Webbook)
Haddiya, also known as Gurage, is classified as Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, East, Highland. It has some lexical similarity with Sidamo. For our purposes it is not included here. (info from Ethnologue)
No dialect survey of the Gurage continuum exists at present (see Bender above). Gurage has traditionally been divided into Central West Gurage (Chaha et al.); East Gurage (Sil'ti et al.), North Gurage, and others (Misqan, Peripheral West Gurage). (Webbook)
See also Harari
Gurage is a local language.
No standardized orthography exists for any of the Gurage languages. (Webbook)
A sample of a short religious text is on the "Language Museum" site at http://www.language-museum.com/g/gurage-west.htm
This language heading may be so diffuse so as to merit deletion or reformulation into separate pages. It appears from the descriptions available that there are several separate tongues spoken by the people known as Gurage.
Dwyer, David (1997), Webbook of African Languages, http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html (page on "Gurage," http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Gurage_root.html )
Wikipedia, "Chaha language," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebat_Bet_Gurage_language
______, "Gurage," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurage
< Gogo | Major Languages | Hausa >
