Gwama
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A language of Ethiopia
15,000 (Küspert 2015). Ethnic population: 20,000 (Küspert 2015).
Benishangul-Gumuz region: Mao Komo special woreda; Oromia region: West Wollega zone, Begi district; some villages near South Sudan border. Benishangul-Gumuz region (Lowland dialect); Oromia region: Begi and Tongo (Highland dialect).
5 (Developing).
Highland Gwama (T’wa Sit Shwala), Lowland Gwama. Use of Highland Gwama is decreasing (Küspert 2015).
SVO; head-initial noun phrase; prepositions; first person inclusive and exclusive distinction; 2 genders; plural only distinguished for animate; verbal morphology distinguishes deictic direction, aspect, person, number and gender for subject, object and indirect object, third (neuter) gender only in non-subject affixes; no morphological verb derivations; stem reduplication to prevent occurrence of inflected verb stem in clause final position; 7 vowels with ATR distinction in the high vowels, no phonemic length; tonal (3 tone levels).
Vigorous. Some language shift toward Oromo [gaz] in Oromia region and Tongo. Used by all. All also use West Central Oromo [gaz], as the dominant language in the area (Küspert 2015). Some also use Amharic [amh], especially younger generation. A few also use Standard Arabic [arb], in limited domains. Also use Berta [wti]. Used as L2 by Ganza [gza], Komo [xom].
Latin script [Latn], used since 2013.
Muslim, traditional religion.