Wolaytta

Abstract This chapter discusses the Wolaytta language, which belongs to the Omotic branch of the Afroasiatic phylum. Wolaytta is used for everyday conversation, schooling, and pop songs. Pitch is used distinctively when speaking Wolaytta as it is deemed as a word-accent language. Moreover, Wolaytta verbs and nominals are classified into groups: Accent Class I and Accent Class II. On the other hand, the orthography of Wolaytta is based on the Roman script. Most Wolaytta words consist of a lexical stem and a grammatical ending, as part of a specific inflectional paradigm or derivations. Based on these endings, words can be divided into two major classes: verbs and nominals. Common nouns inflect for concreteness, as well as gender, number, and case. For reporting utterances of others, Wolaytta prefers a mix of direct and indirect speech.