Gawwada

Abstract This chapter focuses on the dialect spoken in the town of Gawwada and the neighbouring villages—Gawwada. It stresses that it is a member of the so-called Dullay variety spoken in the town of Gawwada and the neighbouring villages in southwest Ethiopia. Dullay is a direct offspring of East Cushitic, although an alternative classification grouping Dullay and Yaaku together has been proposed and further substantiated. I propose to call the groups made up of Dullay and Yaaku Peripheral East Cushitic. Dullay speakers have no overall term for themselves and the Dullay dialects are not endangered. This chapter then shifts to discuss the phonology of Gawwada, starting with the inventory of phonemes. It studies the process of affixation and reduplication in Gawwada, and notes that suffixation is the most common morphological mechanism. The chapter concludes by discussing adjectives, numerals, ideophones, and negation.