Annotated Swadesh wordlists for the Gonja-Gimojan group (Omotic family).

Languages included: Yem [ggm-yem]; Chara [ggm-chr]; Bench [ggm-bnc]; Dorze [ggm-drz].

DATA SOURCES

I. Yem

Aklilu et al. 2002 = Aklilu Yilma; Siebert, Ralph; Siebert, Kati. Sociolinguistic Survey of the Omotic Languages Sheko and Yem. SIL International. // An SIL survey with extensive sociolinguistic information on Sheko and Yem. Includes a 320-item wordlist for Yem (but not for Sheko).

Lamberti 1993 = Lamberti, Marcello. Materialien zum Yemsa. Studia Linguarum Africae Orientalis, 5. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. // A large description of the Yemsa language, accompanied with a relatively small glossary.

Wedekind 1990 = Wedekind, Klaus. Gimo-Jan or Ben-Yem-Om: Benč - Yemsa phonemes, tones and words. In: Hayward, Richard J. (ed.). Omotic Language Studies. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, pp. 68-184. // A phonetic sketch of the Yemsa and Benč languages, followed by a highly representative glossary for both languages.

II. Chara

Aklilu Yilma 2002 = Aklilu Yilma. Sociolinguistic Survey Report on the Chara Language of Ethiopia. SIL International. // A brief sketch of the phonology and some grammatical aspects of Chara, accompanied with the S.L.L.E. 320-item word list for Chara.

Cerulli 1938 = Cerulli, Enrico. Studi Etiopici III: Il linguaggio dei Giangerò ed alcune lingue Sidama dell'Omo (Basketo, Ciara, Zaissè). Roma: Istituto per l'Oriente. // Grammatical and lexical survey of several Cushitic and Omotic languages of Ethiopia, including Chara.

III. Bench

Wedekind 1990 = Wedekind, Klaus. Gimo-Jan or Ben-Yem-Om: Benč - Yemsa phonemes, tones and words. In: Hayward, Richard J. (ed.). Omotic Language Studies. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, pp. 68-184. // A phonetic sketch of the Yemsa and Benč languages, followed by a highly representative glossary for both languages.

Rapold 2006 = Rapold, Christian Johann. Towards a grammar of Benchnon. PhD Thesis, University of Leiden. // A detailed phonetical and grammatical description of the Bench language, accompanied with a representative glossary.

IV. Dorze

Alemayeh 2002 = Alemayeh Abebe. Ometo Dialect Pilot Survey Report. SIL International. // A comparative wordlist for six languages of the Ometo cluster (Wolayta, Gofa, Gamo, Dorze, C'ancha, Dawro/Kullo), personally collected by the author. No additional information.

NOTES

I. Yem

1. General.

Yemsa, or Janjero, is currently spoken by approximately 100,000 people in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. Judging by the data in [Aklilu Yilma 2002], the dialectal variety of the language is quite large, but available data are too incomplete and unreliable to conduct a proper lexicostatistical survey between any of them. For our main source, we rely on the seemingly well-transcribed wordlist in [Wedekind 1990], following the author's own phonetic analysis; in the notes section, we consistently indicate the corresponding equivalents (and discrepancies, if there are any) in the survey data of [Aklilu Yilma 2002], comprising three distinct dialects: Yemsa proper (Central Highland area), Fofa, and Toba. For a couple of entries where the data were lacking, we have to rely on [Lamberti 1993] as the only source.

2. Transliteration.

The transcription in [Hayward 1990] has been retained with a minimal share of transliteration. Long vowels (ii, ee, etc.) have been transliterated to UTS iː, eː, etc. The affricates č, ǰ are transcribed as č, ǯ respectively (they are noted as "palato-alveolar" in the source); palatal nasal ň is transcribed as UTS ɲ.

II. Chara

1. General.

There are relatively few sources on Chara, spoken by approximately 13,00 people in the Debub Omo zone. The oldest source, a brief grammar sketch and wordlist in [Cerulli 1938], is heavily quoted in the notes section of the current wordlist, but the wordlist itself is drawn from [Aklilu Yilma 2002], the only modern source on the language that is useful for lexicostatistical purposes. It is important to note that the "Shara" language, described by Linda Jordan in her 2009 thesis, is not the same as "Chara" and seems to be more of a dialectal form of Melo; data on "Shara" should not be mixed together with data from the works of Cerulli and Aklilu Yilma (which, on the contrary, do seem to be describing more or less the same lect).

2. Transliteration.

Aklilu Yilma's transcription largely follows IPA regulations and only requires the usual cosmetic changes from IPA to UTS (tʃ > č; also, Aklilu's j corresponds to ʓ, not y, in the UTS, i. e. this is a violation of IPA rules on his part). Chara is described by Aklilu Yilma as a stress-governed rather than tonal language; he typically marks stress as V́, which we convert to ˈV.

III. Bench

1. General.

"Bench", or "Bench-non" (non = 'mouth, language'), is the name of a dialect (spoken by about 200,000 people) of the language formerly called "Gimira" that also includes the closely related She (She-non) and Mer (Mer-non) dialects. As our primary source of lexical data, we use the wordlist in [Wedekind 1990], where, in addition to Bench, some discrepancies between the three dialects are indicated (lexicostatistically, these seem to be minimal). A much more significant source for the further study of Bench is the more recent grammatical description and glossary in [Rapold 2006]; fortunately, in most cases its data fully coincide with the corresponding entries in Wedekind's wordlist, so in those few cases where the necessary entry is missing in [Wedekind 1990], we can fill in the empty slot with data from [Rapold 2006].

2. Transliteration.

On the transcription system used in [Hayward 1990], see notes on Yem above. The transcription in [Rapold 2006] is largely concurrent, except that the author relies a bit more on standard IPA, and the system of coronal affricates and sibilants is not only transcribed differently by the two authors, but is even interpreted differently: "denti-alveolar", "palatal", and "retroflex" consonants of Hayward correspond to "alveolar", "postalveolar", and "alveolo-palatal" consonants of Rapold, respectively. Cf. the discrepancies summarized in the table below, as well as the result of conversion to the UTS system (in the case of the third series, we respect the interpretations of both authors and convert Hayward's symbols to UTS retroflex consonants and Rapold's symbols to palatal consonants):

Hayward 1990	Rapold 2006	UTS
s̀	ts	c
s̀'	tsʼ	cʼ
z	z	z
s	s	s
č	tʃ	č
č'	tʃʼ	čʼ
ž	ʒ	ž
š	ʃ	š
č̨	cɕ	c̨ (ɕ)
č̨'	cɕʼ	c̨ʼ (ɕʼ)
ž̨	ʑ	z̨ (ʑ)
š̨	ɕ	ʂ (ʆ)

IV. Dorze

1. General.

The only easily available source on Dorze, currently spoken by about 30,000 people in the north Omo zone, is [Alemayeh 2002], a representative wordlist personally collected by the author, but without any additional information on phonology or grammar, let alone text examples; the few other known sources on the language are somewhat obscure Ethiopian PhD theses that still remain unavailable to us. Nevertheless, the wordlist is sufficiently large to fill in almost 100 positions on the 110-item wordlist and include Dorze in all standard lexicostatistical calculations.

2. Transliteration.

Alemayeh's data are largely consistent with standard IPA transcription; exceptions seem to have been made for affricates, where the author uses ɕ to denote a voiceless palatal affricate (just as in UTS), and ʒ to denote a voiced affricate (ǯ ?).

Database compiled and annotated by: G. Starostin (last update: April 2017).