An Analysis of the Harari Vocabulary (original) (raw)

AN ANALYSIS OF THE HARART VOCABULARY

BY

WOLF LESLAU

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Harari is a language spoken in the city of Harar which is situated about 350 miles to the east of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The native name of the language is the Galla expression Adare or, with the Amharic ending, Adardhna. The inhabitants of Harar also call their language gë sinân « the language of the city », gë (« city ») designating the city of Harar. For the purposes of this study, « Harari », the name Western scholars have adopted for the language, will be used.

There are several collections of Harari words I<1\ During my various trips to Ethiopia I had occasion to collect a vocabulary of about 2.200 roots (2). The dictionary which is ready for publication contains etymologies, and comparisons with the other Ethiopie languages, with Semitic in general and with Cushitic. Since Harari represents a rather characteristic type of South Ethiopie, I though it advisable to present here a systematic analysis of its vocabulary. To be more precise, I intend to investigate the relation between the Harari vocabulary and the various Semitic Ethiopie languages, and to give an account of the numerous borrowings from Arabic and Cushitic. The analysis presented here does not mention the comparisons and etymologies; they will be found in the dictionary. Neither are the Harari roots examined in relation to the Semitic roots ; a special index of the Etymological dictionary of Harari gives the Harari roots that are of Semitic origin.

There are several shortcomings in this analysis. First of all, our knowledge of the various Semitic Ethiopie languages and especially of Cushitic is still inadequate for a thorough analysis. Also, it is quite often difficult do decide on the relation between two different roots. Is it the actual form of the word that