Summary
The Qimant language is a highly endangered language spoken by a small and elderly fraction of the Qemant people in northern Ethiopia, mainly in the Chilga woreda in Semien Gondar Zone between Gondar and Metemma.
| Qimant | |
|---|---|
| Kemantney | |
| Native to | Ethiopia |
| Region | Amhara Region |
| Ethnicity | Qemant people |
Native speakers | (1,700 cited 1994 census)[1] |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ahg |
| Glottolog | qima1242 |
| ELP | K'emant |
Classifications edit
The language belongs to the western branch of the Agaw languages.[2] Other (extinct) varieties of this branch are Qwara and Kayla. Along with all other Cushitic languages, Qimant belongs to the Afroasiatic language family.
Geographic distribution and sociolinguistic situation edit
Qimant is the original language of the Qemant people of North Gondar Zone, Ethiopia. Although the ethnic population of the Qemant was 172,327 at the 1994 census, only a very small fraction of these speak the language nowadays. All speakers live either in the Chilga or Lay Armachiho woredas.[3] The number of first-language speakers is 1,625, the number of second language speakers 3,450.[4] All speakers of the language are older than 30 years, and more than 75% are older than 50 years.[5] The language is no longer passed on to the next generation of speakers. Most ethnic Qemant people speak Amharic. Qimant is not spoken in public or even within the home as a means of daily communication anymore, but is reduced to a secret code.[6]
Dialects/Varieties edit
It is not clear to what extent Kayla, Qwara, and Qimant have been dialects of the same Western Agaw language, or were languages distinct from each other.
Phonology edit
Consonants edit
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ŋʷ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | t | tʃ | k | kʷ | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ɡʷ | |
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | χ | χʷ |
| voiced | z | ɣ | ɣʷ | |||
| Tap | r | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||
Continuants can be geminated word-medially.
Vowels edit
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ⟨i⟩ | ɨ ⟨ï⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ |
| Mid | ə | o | |
| Open | a |
Phonotactics edit
The maximum syllable structure in Qimant is CVC, which implies that consonant clusters are only allowed word-medially.[8] In loanwords from Amharic there may also be consonant-clusters within a syllable. Vowel clusters are not allowed.
Phonological processes edit
Consonant clusters with more than two consonants are broken up by inserting the epenthetic vowel /ɨ/. Other phonological processes are nasal assimilation and devoicing of /ɡ/ at word boundaries.[9]
Prosody edit
The prosodic features of Qimant have not been studied yet.
Grammar edit
Morphology edit
The personal marking system distinguishes between first person singular and plural, second person singular, polite, and plural, and third person masculine, feminine and plural. On the verb, all inflectional categories are marked by suffixes. Zelealem (2003, p. 192) identifies three different aspect forms in Qimant: Perfective, Imperfective and Progressive. Like in other Central Cushitic languages, the numbers one to nine go back to an ancient quinary system, where the suffix /-ta/ added to the numbers two to four results in the numbers six to nine [clarification needed] (2-4 are three numbers, 6-9 are four numbers).[10]
Syntax edit
The basic constituent order in Qimant, like in all other Afro-Asiatic languages of Ethiopia, is SOV. The presence of a case marking system allows for other, more marked orders. In the noun phrase the head noun follows its modifiers. Numbers, however, can also follow the head noun. All kind of subordinate clauses precede the main verb of the sentence.[11]
Vocabulary edit
As a consequence of the looming language death, many items of the vocabulary are already replaced by Amharic words.
Notes edit
- ^ Qimant at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Leyew 2003, p. 30.
- ^ see map in Leyew 2003, p. 31
- ^ Leyew 2003, p. 62.
- ^ Leyew 2003, p. 63.
- ^ Leyew 2003, p. 75.
- ^ a b Leyew 2003, p. 158.
- ^ Leyew 2003, pp. 160ff.
- ^ Leyew 2003, pp. 164ff.
- ^ Leyew 2003, p. 233.
- ^ Leyew 2003, pp. 252–262.
References edit
- Appleyard, David L. (June 1975). "A descriptive outline of Kemant". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 38 (2): 316–350. doi:10.1017/S0041977X0014248X. JSTOR 613215. S2CID 145498371.
- Leyew, Zelealem (2003). The Kemantney language: a sociolinguistic and grammatical study of language replacement. Kuschitische Sprachstudien. Köln: Köppe. ISBN 978-3-89645-067-8.
Further reading edit
- Leyew, Zelealem (2002). Sociolinguistic survey report of the Kemant (Qimant) language of Ethiopia (Report). SIL Electronic Survey Reports. Vol. 2002–031. Archived from the original on 2014-09-07.
External links edit
- World Atlas of Language Structures information on Kemant