| Also Known As: Ghimarra,Gimira,Gimarra,Dizu
Description:
Bench (also called Gimira, considered a derogatory term) is a Northern Omotic language of the "Gimojan" subgroup, spoken by about 174,000 people (as of 1998) in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira. It has three mutually intelligible dialects: Bench proper, She, and Mer. In unusual variance from most of the other languages in Africa, Bench has retroflex consonant phonemes. The language is also noteworthy in that it has six phonemic tones, one of only a handful of languages in the world that have this many.
The phonemic vowels of Bench are /i e a o u/
There are six phonemic tones: five level tones (numbered 1 to 5 in the literature, with 1 being the lowest) and one rising tone 23 /˨˧/. The top tone is sometimes realized as a high rising 45 [˦˥]. On the vowel o, they are /ő ó ō ò ȍ ǒ/
The consonants are:
All of these can occur palatalized, but only before /a/, suggesting an alternate analysis of a sixth phonemic vowel /ja/. Labialized consonants are reported for p, b, s, g, and ʔ, but their phonemic status is unclear; they only occur after /i/.
For the phoneme /p/ the..... full article at Wikipedia |
