Linguistics

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Browsing Linguistics by Subject "Afar Regional State: the Case of Ab' Ala Town"

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    Language Use and Contact Phenomena in Afar Regional State: the Case of Ab' Ala Town
    (Addis Ababa Universiy, 2010-09) Ebrahim, Mohammed; Sava, Graziano
    In the lingui stically heterogeneous Ab'ala town, the dwellers use di versified languages in different domain s. In Ab'a la town. over four di stin ct Ethiopian languages are in use. These are Afa r-a f. Tigrinya, Amharic, Af"an Oromo, and Saho. 01' these languages. Afar-a t" and Tigrinya are the two indigenous local languages in the research area. On the other hand, Amharic, Afan Oromo, and Saho are non-indi genous languages. Amharic which is used as the main official language, both in the town and the region, functions in the powerful domains as language. of public services ( in office, school, health center). and authorities (in poli ce station and courtroom). However, Afar-af functions only in certain domains. It is used as the de-j ure regional language and res tricted only to the domains under grass root level (less powerful). It fun ctions in the family domain. among co uples of th e same ethnic group (intra-marriage), and in reli gious donwin (along \\'ith Arab ic). In other word s. Afar-af developed in the less-affiuent domai ns. This shows the language se izes so many important domains at the expense of Amharic. Besides, Tigrinya to a greater degree and Afar-af to lesse r degree are the two most commonly used languages in the domains of market. On the other hand, in the case of less powerful domains language use does not seem to be consistent in all the domains. This is evident in the family domain in wh ich three languages are predominan tly used hy respondents 1·1 hik intc'I"