Some thoughts on Lamberti's <i>Die Shinassha-Sprache</i>: a review article

It is hardly possible to praise the work which is the subject of this article too highly. It follows quite rapidly in the wake of a quartet of volumes devoted to the study of the languages of the Horn (Lamberti 1986, 1988a, 1988b; Haberland and Lamberti, 1988), and together with the more recently published Materialien zum Yemsa , (Lamberti, 1993b) constitutes a deeply impressive contribution to this area of scholarship. It is the present writer's long-held opinion that within this field the most pressing need continues to be good synchronic descriptions and dictionaries of the lesser-known languages and dialects. The work in hand meets just that need. As it happens, Shinassha has not been altogether neglected by previous research (cf. Grottanelli, 1941; Plazikowsky Brauner, 1950; Rottland, 1990), but every reader of this book will agree with me when I say that we now have a treatment of the language far beyond anything we have had previously. Indeed, as far as ‘Westkuschitik’ (alias ‘North Omotic’) languages are concerned, this bids well to be the most thoroughgoing description yet. Of course, it goes without saying that, short of reduplicating the researcher's fieldwork, it is impossible for any reader of such a book to vouch for the forms presented; but such is the scrupulous attention to detail in transcription, the accuracy in cross-referencing, and the general internal consistency in this particular work that little doubt could be entertained as to its being anything but authoritative.