Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL) is one of the underresearched languages of Ethiopia although it is used by more than a million members of the Deaf community. Not much is known about the language, particularly its use and current status. In addition, its users within the Deaf community have begun addressing the issues of equality, participation,…

Despite the growing sophistication of digital technologies, it appears they are contributing to language extinction on a par with devastating losses in biodiversity. With language extinction comes loss of identity, inter-generational cohesion, culture, and a global wealth of knowledge to address future problems facing humanity. Linguists estimate…

This is the first collection of research studies to explore the potential for mixed methods to shed light on foreign or second language learning by young learners in instructed contexts. It brings together recent studies undertaken in Cameroon, China, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania and…

Gumuz is a Nilo-Saharan dialect cluster spoken in the river valleys of northwestern Ethiopia and the southeastern part of the Republic of the Sudan. There are approximately 200,000 speakers, the majority of which reside in Ethiopia. This study is a phonological and grammatical analysis of two main dialects/languages: Northern Gumuz and Southern…

The primary objective of this dissertation is to reconstruct the history of the Omotic societies of southwestern Ethiopia. Although historical, anthropological, and linguistic studies exist for this region, the gaps in our knowledge are great. Information on the history of Omotic people, their economic and political systems, beliefs and values,…

The interview questionnaire presented here was designed to elicit three kinds of response--(1) descriptions of Ethiopian language situations, (2) statements from which inferences can be drawn about the respondent's language-related attitudes and values, and (3) information about the respondent's personal history. See related document AL 001 283.…

Work supported in part by a Social Science Research Council research fellowship to R. L. Cooper. (VM)

The questionnaire presented here was designed to be administered to a representative sample of Ethiopian children enrolled in primary and secondary schools. Responses to be elicited pertain to --(1) personal use of language in several domains of speech behavior, (2) use of language by others in situations which the respondent has had an…

Chronicles Ethiopia's history of language policy, and describes the first three years of the country's initiative to provide native language instruction to all its people, focusing on the materials development process and program effectiveness. Teachers are working to develop content-area instructional materials in eight of over fifty languages.…

A survey was conducted from 1967 to 1970 with the following goals: (1) to gather information on the use and teaching of languages in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia; (2) to stimulate research and development in linguistics and language pedagogy in East Africa; (3) to assist in strengthening the resources of East African institutions…