Also Known As: 'Ongota,Birelle,Shanqilla,Ifa'ongota
Description:
Ongota (also known as Birale [ISO 639-3], Birayle) is a moribund language of southwest Ethiopia. In 2008, it was said to be in a state of decline with only 6 elderly native speakers, the rest of their small village on the west bank of the Weito River having adopted the Tsamai language instead. The grammar follows a Subject Object Verb word order. It is probably Afro-Asiatic, but has not been definitively classified. As of 2004, it is being studied by Aklilu Yilma of Addis Ababa University.
Ongota has features of both Afrasiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages that confuse its classification. Fleming (2006) considers it to be an independent branch of Afrasiatic. Savà and Tosco (2003) believe it to be an East Cushitic language with a Nilo-Saharan substratum—that is, that Ongota speakers shifted to East Cushitic from an earlier Nilo-Saharan language, traces of which still remain...... full article at Wikipedia
