Surmic Languages are a subgroup of the
Eastern SudanicThe Eastern Sudanic languages are a large family of languages which constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania....
language family.
- North (Majang
The Majang language is spoken by the Majangir people of Ethiopia. Although it is a member of the Surmic cluster, this language is the most isolated one in that cluster...
, also known as MajangirMajangir is used as the label for both the people, and the language they speak.The Majangir people live in southwestern Ethiopia and speak a Nilo-Saharan language of the Surmic cluster...
)
- South
- Southeast (Kwegu (Dialects: Yidinich, Mugiji), Me'en, Mursi, Suri (Dialects: Tirma, Chai))
- Southwest (Didinga, Kacipo-Balesi
The Kacipo-Balesi language is a Eastern Sudanic language spoken by the Baale and Zilmamu people of Ethiopia and the Kacipo of Sudan. It is a member of the Surmic cluster. There are three main dialects: Balesi , Kacipo, and Zilmamu .- References :...
, MurleThe Murle are an ethnic group residing in Southern Sudan and Ethiopia. They have also been referred to in the literature as Beir.- Culture :...
, Narim, Tennet, and Zilmamu)
The Surmic languages are found in southwest
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast. Its size is 1,100,000 km² with an...
and adjoining parts of southeast
SudanSudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest country in Africa and in the Arab World, and tenth largest in the world by area...
. It appears that the closest relatives of the Surmic group are the
Nilotic languagesThe Nilotic languages are a group of Eastern Sudanic languages spoken across a wide area between southern Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic peoples, particularly associated with cattle-herding...
. In the past, Surmic had been known as “Didinga-Murle” and “Surma”. The former name was too narrow by referring only to two closely related languages and the latter was a label also used to refer to a specific language (Unseth 1997b), so the label “Surmic” is now used. The relationships in the chart above are based on Fleming's work (1983).
Today, the various peoples who speak Surmic languages make their living in a variety of ways, including nomadic herders, settled farmers, slash and burn farmers. They live in a variety of terrain, from the lowlands of Sudan and the banks of the
Omo RiverThe Omo River is an important river of southern Ethiopia. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia, and empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Kenya...
to mountains over 2,300 meters.
Much foundational fieldwork and analysis of Surmic languages was done by
Harold C. FlemingHarold C. Fleming is an anthropologist and historical linguist. As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology he stresses the integration of physical anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, and cultural anthropology in solving anthropological problems.-Biography:Since 1965...
and
M. L. BenderLionel Bender may refer to:*Lionel Bender , British editor and the author of more than 70 children's illustrated information books*Lionel Bender , American author and co-author of several books, publications and essays regarding African languages...
. The most complete descriptions of Ethiopian Surmic languages are of Murle (Arensen 1982) and Tirma (Bryant 1999). All Surmic languages are presumed to be tonal, have implosive consonants, and have distinctive vowel length. Some have as many as nine vowel qualities, and more detailed study may confirm this in other Surmic languages, also.
Me'enMe'en is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Ethiopia by the Me'en people. In recent years, it has been written with the Ge'ez alphabet, but in 2007 a decision was made to use the Latin alphabet...
and Kwegu (also spelled Koegu) have sets of ejective consonants.
The languages share a system of marking the number of both the possessed and the possessor in possessive pronouns (Unseth 1991). Number of nominals is typically marked on a number of morphemes, with t/k marking singular and plural (Bryan 1959). Adjectives are formed by stative relative clauses.
MajangirMajangir is used as the label for both the people, and the language they speak.The Majangir people live in southwestern Ethiopia and speak a Nilo-Saharan language of the Surmic cluster...
(also called Majang) and Southwest Surmic languages (Fleming 1983) share a number of traits, so they are therefore presumably reconstructable in Proto-Surmic: relative clauses (which include adjectives), demonstratives, adverbs, numerals, genitives, and possessive pronouns follow their heads, noun derivations and subject marking on verbs are marked by suffixes, VSO (
Verb Subject ObjectVerb Subject Object is a term in linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these constituents in neutral expressions: Ate Sam oranges....
) order predominates in indicative main clauses. Some typologically exceptional points are discussed by Arensen, et al. (1997). However, Dimmendaal’s introduction proposes a different analysis (1998).
All Surmic languages have been documented as having case suffixes (Unseth 1989). None of them have a marked accusative, but at least Majang and Murle sometimes mark nominatives, part of a broader areal pattern (König 2006).
The original geographic home of the Surmic peoples is thought to be in Southwestern Ethiopia, somewhere near
MajiMaji is a town in southern Ethiopia. It is located on the Boma plateau, lying in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, and has a longitude and latitude of with an elevation variously given as 2104, 2258 and 2430 meters above sea level...
, with the various groups dispersing from there: for example, the Majangir having moved north, the Murle having migrated clockwise around
Lake TurkanaLake Turkana , formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, with its far northern end crossing into Ethiopia. It is the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake...
(Arensen 1983:56-61, Tornay 1981), and the Mursi having moved into and out of the Omo River valley. Ethnolinguistic identities within the Surmic group have not been rigid, with ample evidence of people’s identities shifting from one ethnolinguistic group to another, (Tornay 1981, Turton 1979, Unseth and Abbink 1998).
The starting point for linguistic and anthropological research into Surmic studies is the book edited by Dimmendaal (1998), especially the bibliography article (Abbink and Unseth 1998).