Ethiopian Linguist Says Many African Languages 'On the Verge of Extinction'

[Obadele Kambon]

Ethiopian Linguist Says Many African Languages 'On the Verge of Extinction'
http://allafrica.com/stories/200608141187.html

Ethiopia: 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

Binyam Tamene
Addis Ababa

Last week the African Union hosted the 5th world's
congress of African linguistics?, as part of the
activities of the Year of African Languages.

The congress, which was organized in collaboration
with the Addis Ababa University in Addis Ababa, was
one in which scholars from Universities worldwide
attended and presented papers or conducted lectures.

Dr. Ambesse Tefera, a linguist by profession who lives
in a small town in Israel known as 'Kaddera' was one
of the participants of the congress from Israel who
made presentations on his new work: Hebrew Amharic
multimedia dictionary.

Anbesse works for the Israeli Ministry of Education
and, on a part basis, teaches linguistics courses at
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"This kind of chance is a good opportunity because now
we (linguists gathered for the conference) have
gathered from different countries with different
experiences. We can learn a lot of things from this
conference." Anbese said while chatting with the Daily
Monitor's Beniam Tamene who asked the Ethiopian
scholar on his new work and other related issues.
Excerpts:

Can you tell me about the topic of your presentation
at the conference?

It is about a Hebrew Amharic multimedia dictionary
which is of seventeen thousand worlds. So, that was
what my presentation was all about.

How would you describe the dictionary Tell us about
the Hebrew-Amharic dictionary?

Most of the words in the dictionary are in Hebrew. The
definition is in Hebrew. Everything is in Hebrew. The
Amharic section is only in the audio. For example if
you type a word 'sulkan' (meaning table in Hebrew)
then if you press the Amharic button then the
dictionary pronounces 'Terepeza' (an Amharic synonym
for table). What we did was to translate the
dictionary, and then have two people read the text. If
a person speaks a male sound in Hebrew, in Amharic
also you will hear a sound of a male. Like wise, if
it's a female sound in Hebrew, the same is pronounced
in our language.

So it's a kind of electronic media ?

Yes its a kind of multimedia dictionary. For example
if you take the word lion ('Ariel' in Hebrew) you have
also a picture of lion and its definition. This is for
the sake of children so they can associate. You have
also the roaring sound of lion. There is a kind of CD
Rome which, if you press that, you will hear a lion
roaring so the child learns the word, the text, the
elaboration and also the sound. It's known as a media
enriched material, that includes audio, video and
textual material.

What inspired you to prepare this 'new' kind of
dictionary and who do you think can benefit from your
work?

We felt that the Ethiopian children are forgetting
Amharic language.

" Ethiopian children" living where? do you mean?

The Ethiopian Children living in Israel. You know
there is an Israeli man who at a centre for
educational technology back in Israel. One day this
man said to me: 'why don't you prepare something for
your children, they are forgetting their language.' I
had also this idea and we talked together. He also
said to me that there was a material in Hebrew that I
could use to provide the Amharic version of. We meant
to produce a fully Amharic dictionary but he said it
was better to first start with this (Amharic-Hebrew)
and then continues on that to produce a complete
Hebrew-Amharic dictionary. So that's how it all
started.

Was it a tough task and how long did it take tell us
about the challenge you have faced, if there was any,
while you were preparing the book?

Yes, it was tough. That was what I talked about in my
presentation at the conference. There are problems
like how to translate proverbs and idiomatical
expressions and so on. And it took me two years.

The challenge I've faced, as I said, is like how to
translate proverbs, idiomatic expressions and some
technological terms. That was the most difficult part
because there are some words which you can understand
but because many people live in a rural area can't
understand it. So, I had to make some kind of
arrangement.

Any support from any body while preparing this
dictionary?

There is someone, his name is Dr. Gesess who I would
like to take this opportunity to thank, who made some
corrections to the book. Otherwise, I did it all by
myself.

Is there any relationship or similarity between the
Hebrew and the Amharic language?

As a linguist, I know the relationship between the
languages even before preparing the dictionary. I
studied the course known as historical linguistics and
comparative linguistics. So, in the world there are
language families. The language families compare
languages that are genetically related. So Amharic,
Tigringa, Hebrew, Arabic are also related and are
Semitic language.

Is this your only book of this type?

Yes it is, but I didn't do the original work. It's
based on a dictionary of another guy. His name is
Professor Jacob Shubuta. He is the first for this
dictionary and, I put the Amharic data on it.

What can you say about Ethiopian languages in Israel
are they used by the Bet-Israel's are their day-today
means of communications?

Yes several languages are spoken in Israel but the
Majority of them speak Amharic. And the next one is
Tigringa but there are also speakers of Orominga
because there are Oromos married to bete-Israelis.
There are also several representatives from different
languages; I also speak Sidmainga in addition to
Amharic.

Can we say many African countries have documented
their languages in a scientific way? (Like your
multimedia dictionary) Yes, they have documented but
there are many Languages which are not documented at
all Do you think it is fair to say that many African
languages are in the brink of extinction?

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.

[NyameNti]

Wow. @Obadele are you a step ahead on this? What type of implications does this have?