Dahalo language

Dahalo
numma guhooni
Native toKenya
RegionCoast Province
EthnicityDahalo people
Native speakers
580 (2019)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3dal
Glottologdaha1245
ELPDahalo
Definitely Endangered
Dahalo is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)[2]
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Dahalo is an endangered Cushitic language spoken by around 500–600 Dahalo people on the coast of Kenya, near the mouth of the Tana River. Dahalo is unusual among the world's languages in using all four airstream mechanisms found in human language: clicks, implosives, ejectives, and pulmonic consonants.

While the language is known primarily as "Dahalo" to linguists, the term itself is an exonym supposedly used by Aweer speakers that itself essentially means “stupid” or “worthless.”[3] The speakers themselves refer to the language as numma guhooni.

  1. ^ Dahalo at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Atlas of the world's languages in danger". UNESCO Digital Library. p. 183. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  3. ^ STILES, D. (1982). A HISTORY OF THE HUNTING PEOPLES OF THE NORTHERN EAST AFRICA COAST: Ecological and Socio-Economic Considerations. Paideuma, 28, 165-174. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/41409881