Saho Language:
Saho is a language, belonging to the family of Afro-Asiatic
languages, previously known as Hamito-Semitic language. The
terms "Semitic" and "Hamitic" are actually
linguistic terms, not ethnic designations. They do not refer
to racial or ethnic groups, but rather to language groups. A
Semite is one who speaks a Semitic language. A Hamite is one
who speaks a Hamitic language. This has always been true, despite
popular misuse of the terms.
The Hamitic subfamily is generally considered to include and
ancient Egyptian and its descendant, Coptic; the Berber languages;
and Cushitic languages. Those Hamitic tongues are or were spoken
in N Africa, much of the Sahara, the Horn of E Africa, and parts
of central and W Africa. They were named after Ham, the second
son of the Noah, whose descendants supposedly were the original
speakers of the Hamitic languages.
The AFRO-ASIATIC FAMILY, or the HAMITO-SEMITIC FAMILY of
languages encompasses nearly all the languages of the Near
East and northern Africa. The Afro-asiatic family consists
of six coordinate branches, each branch with its own set languages.
Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, Omatic and Chadic. According
to one theory, the languages of the Afro-asiatic family are
thought to have first been spoken along the shores of the
Red Sea. Another theory holds that the language family came
into being in Africa, for only in Africa are all its members
found, aside from some Semitic languages encountered in SW
Asia. The existence of the Semitic languages in W Asia is
explained by assuming that African Semitic speakers migrated
from E Africa to W Asia in very ancient times. At a later
date, some Semitic speakers returned from Arabia to Africa.
Saho & Afar belong to Cushitic branch. Other family members
of these group include; Oromo, Somali, Bedawi and Agaw.
The root system in Saho language:
The Afro-asiatic languages including Saho, in addition to
a common source for their most ancient vocabulary, as well
as other syntactic similarities, what binds the branches of
the Afro-asiatic family together is their consonantal
root system. In this system most words consist of three
consonants, while a lesser number have two or (to an even
lesser extent) four consonants. In any one word, these consonants
are called the "root," and the root relates to the
general concept behind the meaning of the word. Usually, the
root is unalterable, although it can be inflected by the use
of infixes (elements which are inserted within the root) and
by prefixes and suffixes, all of which denote grammatical
changes and which form new words with related meanings.
Most significantly, the vowels of the root--and hence its
vocalization--change depending upon how the root is used in
any given part of speech, e.g., as a noun, a verb, or in a
certain mood, case or verb tense, etc. The pattern of vowel
usage and change is called the "scheme." Thus, root
and scheme are the two major elements which constitute the
word in the Afro-asiatic languages. For example, in Saho language
the root pertaining to the concept of dancing is r-g-d. While
the consonants rgd will always remain the same, the scheme
and vocalization will change depending upon usage, e.g.:
Rigdo “dancing”, Argado, nargado “to dance",
Yargidetia, "dancer (male)"/targidetiya, "dancer
(female)"
Subject Object Verb:
Saho has the form Subject Object Verb (SOV). SOV is a term
used in linguistic typology to state the general order of
words in a language’s sentences: “Omar Tufahto
bete” is translated into “ Omar apple ate”.
The SOV type is the most common type found in natural languages.
Relationship between Saho &
Afar language:
“The Afar & Saho have over 70% of linguistic relationships
and they can communicate easily with each other without any
difficulty”. (Abdulkader S. Mohammed, 1997: 8)
“The Afar & Saho share a large number of words
with the same meaning, cognates are usually closely related.
This is because once people speaking a common language have
become socially or geographically separated (…). But
some words are more resistant to borrowing than others, that
means they hare less subject to change over time. In East-Cushitic
languages, such words include those for universal concepts
[eat, drink, rain, sky, Sun, moon, Star, Earth, cattle, etc..]
and basic parts of human body”. M Nuuh Ali (1985: 21-22).
According to Leo Reinisch, (1886:795) that the Afar &
Saho are not two languages but the same language. The structure
& grammatical forms are the same one language. And this
lies in their geographical location and isolation especially
by the Saho in the highlands who kept the language.
Herbert S. Lewis (1966:42) assumes that Afar & Saho have
evidently been in their area long enough to have diverged
into two closely related but distinctly different languages.
The Afar & Saho languages can also be sub-divided into
dialects, the four distinctive dialects of Saho are; Minifre,
Hado (Hazo), Asa-Awurta & Irob dialects.
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