| Wolaitta | |
|---|---|
| Wolayttatto Doonaa | |
| Native to | Ethiopia |
| Region | Wolaita Zone of South Ethiopia |
| Ethnicity | 2.8 million Welayta (2022)[1] |
Native speakers | L1: 2.7 million (2022)[1] L2: 90,000[1] |
| Latin taught in schools[1] and Ethiopic script used by adults | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Wolaita Zone |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | wal |
| ISO 639-3 | wal |
| Glottolog | wola1242 |
Wolaitta or Wolayttatto Doonaa is a North Omotic language of the Ometo group spoken in the Wolayita Zone and some other parts of southwestern Ethiopia. It is the native language of the Welayta people.[1] The estimates of the population vary greatly because it is not agreed where the boundaries of the language are.
There are conflicting claims about how widely Wolaytta is spoken. Some hold that Melo, Oyda, and Gamo-Gofa-Dawro are also dialects, but most sources, including Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 now list these as separate languages. The different communities of speakers also recognize them as separate languages.[2] A variety called Laha is said to be 'close' to Wolaytta in Hayward (1990) but listed as a distinct language by Blench; however, it is not included in Ethnologue.
Wolaytta has existed in written form since the 1940s, when the Sudan Interior Mission first devised a system for writing it. The writing system was later revised by a team led by Dr. Bruce Adams. They finished translating the New Testament in 1981 and the entire Bible in 2002. It was one of the first languages the Derg selected for their literacy campaign (1979–1991), before any other southern languages. Welaytta pride in their written language led to a fiercely hostile response in 1998 when the Ethiopian government distributed textbooks written in Wegagoda – an artificial language based on amalgamating Wolaytta with several closely related languages. As a result the textbooks in Wegagoda were withdrawn and teachers returned to ones in Wolaytta.[3]
In speaking their language, the Wolaytta people use many proverbs. A large collection of them, in Ethiopian script, was published in 1987 (Ethiopian calendar)[A] by the Academy of Ethiopian Languages.[5] Fikre Alemayehu's 2012 MA thesis from Addis Ababa University provides an analysis of Wolaytta proverbs and their functions.[6]
- ^ a b c d e Wolaitta at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
- ^ Abebe 2002
- ^ Sarah Vaughan, "Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia" Archived 2011-08-13 at the Wayback Machine (University of Edinburgh: Ph.D. Thesis, 2003), pp. 250-258
- ^ "Ethiopian – Calendar Converter". www.calendar-converter.com. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
- ^ "Good Amharic Books | Welcome!". Archived from the original on 2013-03-15. Retrieved 2013-02-03.
- ^ "An analysis of Wolayta proverbs: Function in focus" (PDF). Retrieved 2019-09-18.
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