North Ethiopic languages

The North Ethiopic languages are a family of 4 languages (1 extinct, 3 living) spoken in Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, and eastern Sudan. They include the ancient Ge’ez language which is now extinct, but remains in use as a liturgical language in the Eritrean and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches. Harari, although being a South Ethiopic language, has several features in common with North Ethiopic.[1]

North Ethiopic
Geographic
distribution		Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan
Linguistic classificationAfro-Asiatic
Subdivisions
  • Ge’ez
•Tigrinya
•Tigre
•Dahalik
Glottologethi1244

Classification

The division into northern and southern branches was established by Cohen (1931) and Hetzron (1972) and garnered broad acceptance, but this classification has recently been challenged by Rainer Voigt.[2] Voigt rejects the classification that was put forward by Cohen and Hetzron, concluding that they are too closely related to be grouped separately into a north and south.[3]

References
  1. Lipiński, Edward (2001). Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. ISBN 9789042908154.
  2. "Rainer Voigt - North vs. South Ethiopian Semitic - Languages Of Africa - Syntactic Relationships". Scribd.
  3. Voigt, Rainer. "North vs. South Ethiopian Semitic" (PDF). portal.svt.ntnu.no. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  4. For its membership in North Ethiopic, see Wolf Leslau, "Ethiopic and South Arabian", in Linguistics in South West Asia and North Africa (The Hague, 1970), p. 467, and Alice Faber, "Genetic Subgrouping of the Semitic Languages", in The Semitic Languages (Routledge, 2005), pp. 6–7.
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