Konso language
Cushitic language spoken in southwestern Ethiopia
Konso (Komso, Khonso, also Af Kareti, Afa Karatti, Conso, Gato, Karate, Kareti) is a Lowland East Cushitic language spoken in southwest Ethiopia. Native speakers of Konso number about 200,000 (SIL 2005). Konso is closely related to Dirasha (also known as Gidole), and serves as a "trade language", or lingua franca, beyond the area of the Konso people. Blench (2006) considers purported dialects Gato and Turo to be separate languages.
The Grammar of Konso was first described by Hellenthal (2004), and later, in more detail, by Ongaye (2013). The New Testament was published in the Konso language in 2002.
01Phonology
Consonants
Unlike its Oromoid relatives and most East African languages in general, Konso distinguishes neither voiced nor ejective consonants. Instead, it has a series of implosive stops, including the extremely rare uvular implosive /ʛ/.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||
| Plosive | plain | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | ʛ | ||
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ | χ | h | |
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
| Trill | r | |||||
Vowels
Typical of a Cushitic language, Konso distinguishes five short and five long vowels:
02Orthography
An alphabet for Konso was developed by the SSNPR education Bureau and SIL Ethiopia, with financial support by Wycliffe Norway. It is used in a Konso dictionary, and is currently adopted by the Konso people for general use.
- a: /a/
- b: /ɓ/
- c: /c/
- d: /ɗ/
- e: /e/
- f: /f/
- h: /h/
- i: /i/
- j: /ʄ/
- k: /k/
- l: /l/
- m: /m/
- n: /n/
- ny: /ɲ/
- o: /o/
- p: /p/
- q: /ʛ/ (<g> is sometimes used)
- r: /r/
- s: /s/
- sh: /ʃ/
- t: /t/
- u: /u/
- w: /w/
- x: /χ/
- y: /j/
- ': /ʔ/
Vowel length is indicated by doubling the vowel
03Literature on the Konso language
- Bliese, Loren; Gignarta, Sokka (1986). "Konso Exceptions to SOV (subject-object-verb) Typology". Journal of Ethiopian Studies. 19: 1, 40. JSTOR 41965937.
- Hellenthal, Anne-Christie (2004). Some Morphosyntactic Aspects of the Konso Language (MA thesis). Leiden University.
- Orkaydo, Ongaye Oda (2013). A grammar of Konso (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). Leiden University. hdl:1887/20681.
- Uusitalo, Mirjami (2007). Konso language. in Siegbert Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica 3, 424-425. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
- Ongaye Oda Orkaydo; Maarten Mous (2023). "Konso". In Ronny Meyer; Zelealem Leyew; Bedilu Wakjira (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Ethiopian Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 227, 256.
Sources and credits
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