African Languages: Cushitic Languages

Cushitic Languages

The Cushitic languages are one of the main braches of the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) language family. The Cushitic languages are normally divided into four geographical sub-branches. The dominant languages, both in terms of number of speakers and geographical extension, are Oromo (more than 28 million speakers) and Somali (appr. 3.5 million speakers), which are counted among the Eastern-Cushitic languages. Iraqw with about half a million speakers is the most important language of the Southern-Cushitic sub-branch.

STUDY BOOKS DEALING WITH IMPORTANT CUSHITIC LANGUAGES

– Oromo

Catherine Griefenow-Mewis: Lehrbuch des Somali. Eine praktische Einführung
Afrikawissenschaftliche Lehrbücher Volume 14

DICTIONARIES

Steve Pillinger / Letiwa Galboran: A Rendille Dictionary. Including a Grammatical Outline and an English - Rendille Index
Cushitic Language Studies Volume 14

Tamene Bitima: A Dictionary of Oromo Technical Terms. Oromo–English
Cushitic Language Studies Volume 15

Maarten Mous / Martha Qorro / Roland Kießling: Iraqw-English Dictionary. With an English and a Thesaurus Index
Cushitic Language Studies Volume 18

Harry Stroomer: A Concise Vocabulary of Orma Oromo (Kenya). Orma – English, English – Orma
Cushitic Language Studies Volume 16

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSES and SKETCHES

Joachim Crass: Das K’abeena. Deskriptive Grammatik einer hochlandostkuschitischen Sprache
Cushitic Language Studies Volume 23

Helen Dubnov: A Grammatical Sketch of Somali
Grammatical Analyses of African Languages Volume 20

Catherine Griefenow-Mewis: A Grammatical Sketch of Written Oromo
Grammatical Analyses of African Languages Volume 16