Harari is an Ethiopian Semitic language spoken by the Harari people of Ethiopia. According to the 2007 Ethiopian census, it is spoken by 25,810 people. Harari is closely related to the Eastern Gurage languages, Zay, and Silt'e, all of whom are believed to be linked to the now extinct Semitic Harla language.[6][7] Locals or natives of Harar refer to their language as Gē Sinan or Gē Ritma'language of the City' (Gē is the word for how Harari speakers refer to the city of Harar, whose name is an exonym).[8] According to Wolf Leslau, Sidamo is the substratum language of Harari and influenced the vocabulary greatly.[9] He identified unique Cushitic loanwords found only in Harari and deduced that it may have Cushitic roots.[10]
Harari was originally written with a version of the Arabic script, then the Ethiopic script was adopted to write the language. Some Harari speakers in diaspora write their language with the Latin alphabet.
Wolf Leslau discusses Harari–East Gurage phonology and grammar:[11]
The noun has two numbers, singular and plural. The affix -ač changes singulars into plurals:
abōč'a man'; abōčač'men'
wandaq'a servant'; wandaqač'servants'
gar'a house'; garač'houses'
Nouns ending in a or i become plural without reduplicating this letter:
gafa'a slave'; gafač'slaves'
gubna'a harlot'; gubnač'harlots'
liğği'a son'; liğğač'sons'
mäqbärti'a grave'; mäqbärtač'graves'
/s/ alternates with /z/:
färäz'a horse'; färäzač'horses'
iraaz'toga'; iraazač'togas'
Gender
Masculine nouns may be converted into feminines by three processes. The first changes the terminal vowel into -it, or adds -it to the terminal consonant:
rágá'an old man'; rágít'an old woman'
buchí'male dog'; buchít'female dog'
wasíf'a slave boy'; wasífít'a slave girl'
Animals of different sexes have different names. and this forms the second process:
bárá'an ox'; lám'a cow'
The third and the most common way of expressing sex is by means of aboch'male or man' and inistí'woman, female', corresponding to English "he-" and "she-":
Harari was originally written in an unmodified and later modified Arabic Script.[12][13][14] The Ethiopic script was then adopted to write Harari.[15] There is a Latin version of the script used by the Harari diaspora.[16][17]
Harari can be written in the unmodified Ethiopic script as most vowel differences can be disambiguated from context.
The Harari adaptation of the Ethiopic script adds a long vowel version of the Ethiopic/Amharic vowels by adding a dot on top of the letter.
In addition certain consonants are pronounced differently when compared to the Amharic pronunciation.
The table below shows the Harari alphasyllabary with the Romanized & IPA consonants along the rows and the Romanized vowel markings along the columns.
^2021 Census of Canada. "Statistics Canada 2021". Government of Canada. Retrieved 24 February 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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Andrew Cunningham (2011). Harari Harfi(PDF). State Library of Victoria and the Australian Saay Harari Association. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2013-04-10.
Harari Harari people Harari Region Yizhar Harari Michael Harari Yuval Noah Harari Zaki Harari Harari language Abdullah al-Harari Harari Tel Aviv F.C. Alberto Harari (musician) Clément Harari Hananiah Harari Haim Harari Harari (surname) Arthur Harari Eli Harari Yehudit Harari Alberto Harari Manya Harari Haim Harari (educator) Harari National League Oren Harari Ilan Harari Rishon model Erer (Harari woreda) Ovadia Harari Renee Harari Masri Harari People's Democratic Party List of minor planets: 495001–496000 Coffee production in Ethiopia Rafic Hariri