Ethnicity Zay people ISO 639-3 zwa | Region Lake Zway Native speakers 4,900 (1994) | |
Language family Afro-AsiaticSemiticSouth SemiticEthiopicSouth EthiopicTransverseHarari – East GurageZay | ||
Zay (also Lak'i/Laqi) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is one of the Gurage languages. The Zay language has around 5,000 speakers known as the Zay, who inhabit Gelilla and the other five islands and shores of Lake Zway in the southern part of the country.
Contents
Language situation
Zay is an unwritten language. Most speakers are multilingual in Oromo, Amharic, and additional Gurage languages. The language is geographically concentrated around Lake Zway, specifically in Herera, Meki, Ziway, The five Islands:1/ Fundurro Island[Famat or Getesemani Island]-the smallest island, 2/Tsedecha Island[Aysut Island]-next to the biggest, 3/Debre-Tsion Island-the biggest island 4/Gelila Island and 5/Debre Sina Island. It is endangered, with speakers migrating to the mainland adopting the Oromo language, and increasing use of Oromo by the younger generations on the Zay islands.
Zay is 70% lexically similar with the Silt'e language, and 60% with Harari.
Grammar
The word order of Zay is SOV (subject–object–verb). Attributive adjectives precede the nouns they modify. Possessives also precede nouns. Zay is a pro-drop language, with required subject-marking on the verb.
Zay has been greatly affected by contact it has had with the Oromo language. This contact has created a significant amount of lexical and grammatical change in Zay.