Dahalik language
Spoken in
- Afro-Asiatic languages Semitic languages West Semitic languages West Semitic languages Äthiosemitische languages Dahalik
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Dahalik (also Dahlik or Dahaalik; own name: [ haka (na) ] dahālík " [Language (s) ] People of Dahlak ") is an Ethiopian - Semitic language that is spoken on three islands of the Dahlak archipelago in front Eritrea.
Dahalik is spoken by around 2,500 to 3,000 people on the islands of Dahlak Kebir, Norah and Dehil in belonging to Eritrea Dahlak Archipelago. In linguistics, it was classified as a dialect of Tigre, to the French linguist, Marie -Claude Simeone - Senelle and Martine Vanhove 1996 it came and it einordneten as a separate language. Simeone - Senelle conducted from 2002 further research.
Dahalik has similarities to the Tigre and Tigrinya and belongs to the same genetic subgroup of äthiosemitischen languages. However, the understanding between Dahalik speakers and Tigre - speakers from the port city of Massawa is very difficult. Dahalik was also influenced by Arabic and from the Cushitic language Afar, because some Dahalik spokesman additionally use these two languages , some of them also speaks Tigre. Some Eritreans held Dahalik for an Arabic dialect, and many speakers of the language they regarded themselves as mixed language of Tigre, Afar and Arabic.
On Dahlak Kebir, there are different varieties of the language, which differ in phonetics, morphology and vocabulary. Stories and poems on Dahalik were handed down orally, a scriptural tradition does not exist. Because Dahalik was known not as a separate language, as Eritrea became independent in 1993 and its language policy stipulated it not one of the nine officially recognized national languages . Marie- Claude Simeone - Senelle works from a Verschriftung of Dahalik with the Latin alphabet and a dictionary. The authorities want to introduce future Dahalik in schools in the Dahlak Archipelago, where it is currently taught in Arabic.
The sound system consists of 24 consonants and seven vowels (a, ɛ, e, i, o, u, ə ). The usual sentence structure is subject-object - verb ( SOV ). There are two grammatical genders ( masculine and feminine ) and two numbers (singular and plural). The gender is with adjectives often distinguished by ablaut, such as ellim / ellam "black" and NIS / NIS ' small, young ". The personal pronouns are ana ( I ), enta / enti (du, m / f), itu / ita ( he / she ), neḥna (we ) intum / InTun ( her m / f) and itun / itan (her, m / f).
Swell
- Marie- Claude Simeone - Senelle: Les langues en Erythrée, in: Chroniques Yemenites 8, 2000 ( French)
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