Sheko is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the area between Tepi and Mizan Teferi in western Ethiopia, in the Sheko district in the Bench Maji Zone. The 2007 census lists 38,911 speakers; the 1998 census listed 23,785 speakers, with 13,611 identified as monolinguals.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Sheko, together with the Dizi and Nayi languages, is part of a cluster of languages variously called "Maji" or "Dizoid".

The language is notable for its retroflex consonants (Aklilu Yilma 1988), a striking feature shared with closely related Dizi and nearby (but not closely related) Bench (Breeze 1988).

Phonology Apart from the above-mentioned retroflex consonants, the phonology of Sheko is characterized by a total 28 consonant phonemes,Hellenthal 2010, p. 45 five long vowels and six short vowels,Hellenthal 2010, p. 56 plus four phonemic tone levels.Hellenthal 2010, p. 111

Consonants Hellenthal (2010, p. 45) lists the following consonant phonemes of Sheko: Labial Alveolar Post-alveolar Retroflex Velar GlottalPlosive Ejective Voiceless Voiced Affricate Ejective Voiceless Fricative Voiceless Voiced Nasal tap Approximant

Unlike other Dizoid languages, Sheko has no contrast between and .Hellenthal 2010, p. 47 Consonants are rarely geminated,Hellenthal 2010, p. 47 and there is a syllabic nasal .Hellenthal 2010, p. 58

Vowels Hellenthal (2010, p. 56) lists the following long and short vowels of Sheko: , , , , , , , , , .

Tones Sheko is one of very few languages in Africa that have four distinct phonemic tone levels.Hellenthal 2010, p. 111 Tone distinguishes meaning both in the lexicon and in the grammar, particularly to distinguish persons in the pronominal system.Hellenthal 2010, p. 113

Grammar Ethnologue lists the following morphosyntactic features: "SOV; postpositions; genitives, articles, adjectives, numerals, relatives after noun heads; question word initial; 1 prefix, 5 suffixes; word order distinguishes subjects, objects, indirect objects; affixes indicate case of noun phrases; verb affixes mark person, number, gender of subject; passives, causatives, comparatives."

Notes

References Breeze, Mary. 1988. "Phonological features of Gimira and Dizi." In Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko (eds.), Cushitic – Omotic: papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic languages, Cologne, January 6–9, 1986, 473–487. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. Hellenthal, Anneke Christine. 2009. Handout on Sheko subject clitics. download

Yilma, Aklilu, Ralph Siebert and Kati Siebert. 2002. "Sociolinguistic survey of the Omotic languages Sheko and Yem." SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-053.

Further reading

External links Sheko basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database ELAR archive of Guraferdan Sheko