The folowing excerpt from an interview in the Addis Ababa paper, The
Daily Monitor, was seen at
http://www.blackchat.co.uk/theblackforum/forum37/23612.html . It is
with a linguist based in Israel, Dr. Ambesse Tefera, who has completed
a Hebrew-Amharic dictionary... DZO
Ethiopian Linguist Says Many African Languages 'On the Verge of
Extinction'
The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa)
INTERVIEW
August 13, 2006
Posted to the web August 14, 2006
By Binyam Tamene
Addis Ababa
...
Q: Can we say many African countries have documented their languages
in a scientific way? (Like your multimedia dictionary)
A: Yes, they have documented but there are many Languages which are
not documented at all
Q: Do you think it is fair to say that many African languages are in
the brink of extinction?
A: Yes, I can give you substantial example on it. I've worked on a
language known as 'Shabo', I did a research 16 years ago when I was in
Ethiopia with some Americans, There were 600 speakers during that time
and recorded their languages but I don't know if they still exist and
could speak this language. They often spoke another language known as
'Mesunger'. So, probably this language is dead. And also another
American did a research on a language known as 'Ongotta'. It had 75
speakers 20 years ago, so what do you think about this language? It's
already dead. There are many other languages that are slowly dying Why
do you think there are many African languages in the brink of extinction?
There are languages on the verge of extinction for various reasons.
For example there are languages with very few speakers. Some of the
languages are pressured because of the other majority languages. For
example people who live in Oromia, let's say if they can't learn Oromo
and adopt it they can't get a job. So in this case the second language
will be used more often and their language will be losing gradually.
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