Azeb Amha

This article is about a person whose name includes a patronymic. The article properly refers to the person by their given name, Azeb, and not as Amha.
Azeb Amha
Amha (2022)
Born1967
Ethiopian Empire
OccupationLinguist
Academic background
Alma materAddis Ababa University,
Leiden University
Academic work
InstitutionsLeiden University
Main interestsmorphology and syntax of Afroasiatic languages

Azeb Amha (Amharic: አዜብ አምሃ, born 1967) is an Ethiopian linguist working on the morphology and syntax of Afroasiatic languages, with a special focus on Omotic languages. A senior researcher at the African Studies Center Leiden, Azeb is co-editor of the international Journal of African Languages and Linguistics (with Felix Ameka) and member of the board of the Dutch Society for African Studies (NVAS).

After undergraduate studies at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, Azeb obtained her PhD degree from Leiden University. Her thesis, a comprehensive grammar of the Maale language of South-West Ethiopia, was hailed as "an example of descriptive linguistics at its best".[1] Her broad-ranging work since then has involved research on and audio-visual documentation of the linguistic and cultural heritage of the Oyda, Zargulla and Wolaitta peoples, whose languages belong to the Omotic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family.

In 2007, her research on language endangerment and audiovisual documentation (with Maarten Mous and Anne-Christie Hellenthal) was one of 7 finalists for the Academische Jaarprijs [2] and in 2016, she was awarded a competitive research grant for a three year project of the Endangered Languages Documentation Project for the linguistic and ethnographic documentation of endangered cultural practices of the Zargulla people in South-West Ethiopia.[3] Her collection on house construction and farming among the Zargula people is available in the repository of the Endangered Languages Archive.[4]

  1. ^ Hayward, Richard J. (2009). "What's been Happening in Omotic?". Journal of Ethiopian Studies. 42 (1/2): 85–106. ISSN 0304-2243. JSTOR 41967463.
  2. ^ ""Letterenteam Mous bij beste zeven Academische Jaarprijs 2007". www.leidenuniv.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved Oct 15, 2022.
  3. ^ "New research project documenting Zargulla, an endangered Omotic language in Ethiopia". African Studies Centre Leiden. Oct 13, 2016. Retrieved Oct 15, 2022.
  4. ^ "Documentation of house-construction and terrace farming in Zargulla, an endangered Omotic language". Endangered Languages Archive. 2017. Retrieved Oct 17, 2023.