1996
348 pp.
numerous tables and charts
Text languages: English, German, French
What makes the unity of Cushitic and Omotic studies and the unity of the relatively few scholars working in this field? It is, of course, the clear-cut genetic division of the languages spoken in East Africa. In general it is easy to identify a Cushitic, Omotic or Semitic language. But there is more to it than this. Northeast Africa is a specific area; it has an exceptional position within Africa.
The landscape, the mild climate in the highlands, the dominance of the Ethiopic race (which is intermediate to the white and the black race without being a mixture of them), the strong Semitic impact since two and a half millenia, and the indigenous Christian culture have made East Africa a cultural province of its own that constitutes the third geographic-cultural larger area in Africa besides White Africa and Black Africa. All this contributes to the fascination of this area, and has had an influence on our commitment there.
CONTENTS
I. Comparative articles
Afro-Asiatic Comparisons
Alexander Militarev:
Home for Afrasian – African or Asian? Areal Linguistic Arguments
Anna Belova:
Einige jemenitisch-afrikanische Isoglossen
Cushitic Comparisons
Gene Gragg:
CUSHLEX – A Cushitic Etymological Index
Roland Kießling:
Verbal Inflectional Suffixes in the West Rift Group of Southern Cushitic
Mauro Tosco:
The Northern Highland East Cushitic Verb in an Areal Perspective
Rainer Voigt:
Zur Gliederung des Kuschitischen – Die Präfixkonjugationen
Andrzej Zaborski:
Intensive Verbs and the Present in Cushitic
Omotic Comparisons
M. Lionel Bender:
The Limits of Omotic Revisited
Richard J. Hayward:
The Velar Stem Alternation in Omotic
II. Particular Cushitic Languages
Agaw
David L. Appleyard:
Preparing a Comparative Agaw Dictionary
Ma’a
Maarten Mous:
Was there ever a Southern Cushitic Language (Pre-) Ma’a?
Oromo
Tamene Bitima:
European Loanwords in Afaan Oromoo
Catherine Griefenow-Mewis:
The Rise of New Terms in Oromo – Means and Problems
Mohammed Hassen:
A Brief Glance at the History of the Growth of Written Oromo Literature
Getachew Chemeda Nadhabasaa:
Hamachiisaa – Naming a Child by the Oromo Qaalluu and the Social Meanings of the Names
Thomas Zitelmann:
The Return of the Devils Tongue – Polemics about the Choice of the Roman Alphabet (qubee) for the Oromo Language Somali
Georgi Kapchits:
On Subjects and Motifs in Somali Folk-tales – Experience of Cataloguing
Mohamed Mohamed-Abdi:
Standards de la poésie somalie – quelques critères de reconnaissance et d’appréciation des poèmes somalis
III. Particular Omotic Languages
Marcello Lamberti:
A Few Remarks on Verb Derivation in Yemsa
The proceedings of the following international conferences on Cushitic and Omotic languages have been published in our programme: