Lowland East Cushitic languages

Infobox Language family
name=Lowland East Cushitic
region=Ethiopia
familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
fam1=Afro-Asiatic
fam2=Cushitic
child1=Saho-Afar
child2=Oromo
child3=Omo-Tana (perhaps not a single group)
child4=? Rift

The Lowland East Cushitic languages comprise two dozen languages of the Cushitic family within Afro-Asiatic. They are spoken mainly in Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti, but also in parts of Kenya.

Lowland East Cushitic is often grouped with Highland East Cushitic (the Sidamic languages), Dullay, and Yaaku as East Cushitic, but that group is not well defined and considered dubious.

The most prominent Lowland East Cushitic language is Oromo, with about 21 million speakers. Other prominent languages include Somali (spoken by ethnic Somalis in Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Djibouti, and Kenya) with about 15 million speakers, and Afar (in Eritrea and Djibouti) with about 1.5 million.

Robert Hetzron has suggested that the Rift languages "(South Cushitic)" are a part of Lowland East Cushitic,Fact|date=August 2008 and Maarten Mous has suggested more specifically that they be linked to a Southern Lowland branch, together with Oromo, Somali, and Yaaku-DullayFact|date=August 2008.

Unclassified within the Lowland languages are Komso-Gidole and the endangered Boon language.

ee also

*Languages of Ethiopia

References

Roland Kießling & Maarten Mous. 2003. "The Lexical Reconstruction of West-Rift Southern Cushitic." Cushitic Language Studies Volume 21

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90096 Ethnologue entry for East Cushitic languages]