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'Afar' (''Qafár af'') is a Lowland East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. It is believed to have 1.5 million speakers, the Afar. The basic word order in Afar, like in other East Cushitic languages, is Subject Object Verb. Its speakers have a literacy rate of between one and three per cent. Its closest relative is the Saho language.

Contents

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Stress

Writing system

Latin alphabet

See also

Bibliography

External links

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of the Afar language in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in brackets):

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Lateral	Palatal	Retroflex	Velar	Pharyngeal	Glottal
'Stop'	voiced	'b'		'd'			'x'	'g'
	voiceless			't'				'k'
'Fricative'	voiced								'q'
	voiceless		'f'	's'					'c'	'h'
'Nasal'		'm'		'n'
'Approximant'		'w'			'l'	'y'
'Tap'				'r'

Consonants which close syllables are released, e.g., .

Vowels

:
★ ''short''
:
★
★ 'a'
:
★
★ 'e'
:
★
★ 'i'
:
★
★ 'o'
:
★
★ 'u'
:
★ ''long''
:
★
★ 'aa'
:
★
★ 'ee'
:
★
★ 'ii'
:
★
★ 'oo'
:
★
★ 'uu'
Sentence final vowels of affirmative verbs are aspirated (and stressed), e.g., 'abeh' = 'He did.'
Sentence final vowels of negative verbs are not aspirated (nor stressed), e.g.,'maabinna' = 'He did not do.'
Sentence final vowels of interrogative verbs are lengthened (and stressed), e.g. 'abee?' = 'Did he do?'

Stress

Stress is word-final. Syllables are of the form (C)V(V)(C). One exception is the three-consonant cluster -str-.

Writing system

Afar may be written either with the Latin alphabet or Ge'ez script.

Latin alphabet

'A, B, T, S, E, C, K, X, I, D, Q, R, F, G, O, L, M, N, U, W, H, Y'
'a, ba, ta, sa, e, ca, ka, xa, i, da, qa, ra, fa, ga, o, la, ma, na, u, wa, ha, ya'

See also

★ Afar people

★ Afar Region

Bibliography

★ Bliese, Loren F. (1976) ''Afar'', in Bender, Lionel M. (ed.) ''The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia''. Michigan: African Studies Center, Michigan State University, 133–164.

★ Bliese, Loren F. (1981) ''A generative grammar of Afar'' (Summer Institute of Linguistics publications in linguistics vol. 65). Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics / Arlington, Texas: University of Texas at Arlington.

★ Colby, J.G. (1970) ''Notes on the northern dialect of the 'Afar language'', ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'', 8, 1, 1–8.

★ Hayward, R.J. and Parker, Enid M. (1985) ''Afar-English-French dictionary with Grammatical Notes in English'', London, School of Oriental and African Studies.

★ Morin, Didier (1997) ''Poésie traditionnelle des Afars'' (Langues et cultures africaines, 21 / SELAF vol. 363). Paris/Louvain: Peeters.

★ Parker, Enid M. (2006), ''English-Afar Dictionary'', Washington DC, Dunwoody Press

★ Voigt, Rainer M. (1975) ''Bibliographie des Saho-Afar'', ''Africana Marburgensia'', vol. 8, 53–63.

External links

★

★ Afar Sample at Language Museum

★ The beginning of Genesis 1 in Afar at The Rosetta Project.

★ PanAfriL10n page on Afar