16th edition

US$ 100.00

Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Africa > Ethiopia > Argobba

Argobba

A language of Ethiopia

ISO 639-3: agj

Population	10,900 (1994 census), decreasing. 100 monolinguals. Ethnic population: 62,831 (1994 census) USE 3,236 L2 speakers. The ethnic group near Ankober mainly speaks Amharic [amh]; the group near Harar mainly speaks Oromo [hae].
Region	Northeast, Amhara, Oromiya and Afar regions; Rift Valley in Yimlawo, Gusa, Shonke, Berehet, Khayr Amba, Melkajillo, Metehara, Shewa Robit, villages area.
Language map	Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia, reference number 8
Dialects	Aliyu Amba-Ankober, Shonke-T’allaha, Shagura. The ‘purest’ Argobba is spoken in Shonke and T’allaha. Lexical similarity: with Amharic [amh] is 74%–83% for the varieties of Aliyu Amba-Ankober and Shagura in the south, 53% for the variety of Shonke-T’allaha in the north.
Classification	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, South, Ethiopian, South, Transversal, Amharic-Argobba
Language use	Children in Shonke-T’allaha area learn Argobba; in other areas, used only by older people. Positive attitude. Also use Amharic or Oromo.
Language development	Literacy rate in L2: 16.4%.
Comments	Traders; agriculturalists. Muslim.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

LEYEW, Zelealem, author. 1994. "Argobba - the people and the language."

LEYEW, Zelealem; SIEBERT, Ralph, authors. 2001. "Sociolinguistic survey report of the Argobba language of Ethiopia."  

SIEBERT, Ralph, author. 1994. "Argobba: Sociolinguistic information and a 320 item wordlist."

UNSETH, Peter, author. 2003. "Surveying bi-consonantal reduplication in Semitic."