Saho language

Spoken in

• Afro-Asiatic languages Cushitic languages Ostkuschitisch Tieflandostkuschitisch Saho - Afar Saho

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Cus

Ssy

Saho (including Sao Shaho, Shoho or Shiho ) is a language that is spoken in the southern Eritrea and the Ethiopian-Eritrean border area of the Saho. They, together with the closely related Afar Saho - Afar - the branch of ostkuschitischen languages ​​, which in turn are part of the Afro Asiatic language family.

Language situation

Saho is spoken by about 205,000 people as a native language, of which approximately 180,000 live in Eritrea and about 23,000 in Ethiopia. The dialect is spoken iRob exclusively in Ethiopia. Most speakers belong to the same ethnic group Saho, some Saho speaking tribes but are considered by some anthropologists as assimlierte members of other ethnic groups, although they refer to themselves as Saho.

The Saho is in the border areas in contact with the closely related Afar, Tigrinya and Tigre with. Saho speakers use Arabic as a lingua franca.

In Eritrea, Saho is recognized as one of nine " national languages ​​" that apply formally as equal ( in fact Tigrinya and Arabic are the most important as official languages ​​). The Eritrean Constitution was translated to Saho, and there are weekly broadcasts of the national radio station in this language.

History of Research

In the 19th century, Saho, and other Cushitic languages ​​in linguistics were first taken in conjunction with the Semitic languages ​​of Ethiopia, so called Heinrich Georg August Ewald Saho as a " root- way -Semitic language." Leo Reinisch dealt among other things with the Saho.