An Ethiopian Merchants' Argot

During my stay in Ethiopia in 1946–47 I had occasion to investigate various argots, including those of merchants, of minstrels, and of the people possessed by the spirit called zar. The present article will deal with the merchants' argot. There is no unified merchant argot all over Ethiopia, not even among speakers of the same language. The argot under consideration is spoken by the merchants of Moţa, to the north of Debre Markos, the capital of Godjam; it is called kəlaməñña (see §3). A superficial investigation of the argot of the merchants of Gondar, the capital of Begemder, north of Godjam, convinced me that the two argots are quite different. It would be of particular importance to investigate the argot of the merchants of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, which is the meeting-point for merchants of the various populations of the country.