Sebat Bet Gurage language

Sebat Bet Gurage
Native to	Ethiopia
Region	West Gurage Zone
Native speakers	(undated figure of 440,000)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic South Ethiopian South Outer West Gurage Sebat Bet Gurage
Writing system	Ethiopic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sgw
Glottolog	seba1251[2]

Sebat Bet ("Seven houses") is an Afroasiatic language spoken in Ethiopia.

Overview

One of the Gurage languages, Sebat Bet is divided into several dialects. The latter are spoken in the western Gurage Zone:

• Chaha (Cheha) is spoken in Cheha and is the best studied of these varieties
• Ezha (Eza, Izha) is spoken in Ezhana Wolene
• Muher is spoken in the mountains north of Cheha and Ezhaha Wolene
• Gura is spoken in Goro woreda
• Gumer language (Gwemarra, Gʷəmarə), spoken in Gumer
• Inor (Enemor), spoken in Enemorina Eaner

• Gyeto, Endegegn and the extinct Mesmes language are sometimes considered subdialects of Inor.

Notes

1. Sebat Bet Gurage at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Sebat Bet Gurage". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Further reading

• Leslau, Wolf. 1997. "Chaha (Gurage) Phonology" in Kaye, Alan S. (ed.): Phonologies of Asia and Africa 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 373–397.
• Rose, Sharon. 2007. "Chaha (Gurage) Morphology" in Kaye, Alan D. (ed.): Morphologies of Africa and Asia 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 403–427.

External links

• World Atlas of Language Structures information on Chaha