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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The challenge of Omotic |
Author: | Hayward, Richard |
Year: | 1998 |
Periodical: | Horn of Africa |
Volume: | 16 |
Issue: | 1-4 |
Pages: | 1-30 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
Subjects: | language classification Omotic languages |
Abstract: | There are three critical challenges to the study of Omotic, a language family named for the River Omo in southwest Ethiopia. There has been a protracted controversy centring on the taxonomic place of the languages grouped under the label 'Omotic'. The essence of the controversy has always been about whether the languages now called Omotic are really a subgroup of the Cushitic family. Those who excise Omotic from Cushitic give it the status of an independent language family. The three challenges concern the relationship of the Omotic language family to other language families; the synchronic study of Omotic languages; and the obtaining of adequate documentation on the Omotic languages before it is too late, for many of these languages are in a precarious state of health. Notes, ref. |