Gurage people
| Total population |
|---|
| 1,867,377 (2007 census)[1] |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Ethiopia |
| Languages |
| Religion |
| Related ethnic groups |
Gurage is an ethnic group in Ethiopia. According to the 2007 national census, they number 1,867,377 people (or 2.53% of the total population of Ethiopia), of whom 792,659 are urban dwellers. This is 2.53% of the total population of Ethiopia, or 7.52% of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR).[1] The Gurage people inhabit a semi-fertile, semi-mountainous region in southwest Ethiopia, about 150 miles southwest of Addis Ababa. Their homeland extends to the Awash River in the north, the Gibe River (a tributary of the Omo) to the southwest, and to Lake Zway in the east. The Gurage ethnic group has usually been said to consist of three distinct subgroups, Northern, Eastern and Western, but the largest grouping within the Eastern subgroup, known as the Silt'e, did not consider themselves to be Gurage, and in a referendum in 2000 they voted unanimously to form their own administrative unit, the Silte Zone, within the SNNPR.[2]
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[edit] Description
According to the historian Paul B. Henze, their origins are explained by traditions of a military expedition to the south during the last years of the Aksumite Empire, which left military colonies that eventually became isolated from both northern Ethiopia and each other.[3]
The Gurage languages do not constitute a coherent linguistic grouping, rather, the term is both linguistic and cultural. The Gurage people speak a number of separate languages, all belonging to the Southern branch of the Ethiopian Semitic language family (which also includes Amharic). The languages are often referred to collectively as "Guraginya" by other Ethiopians (-inya is the Amharic suffix for most Ethiopian Semitic languages).
Gurage, also known as Guragie or ጉራጌ is written with the Ethiopic alphabet. The Guragie subset of Ethiopic has 44 independent glyphs.
There is no general agreement on how many languages or dialects there are, in particular within the West Gurage grouping.
The following are listed as separate languages by Ethnologue: Soddo (Kistane), Inor, Mesqan, Mesmes, Silt'e (not strictly speaking a Gurage language since the people do not consider themselves Gurage), Zay, and Sebat Bet Gurage. Sebat Bet (or Sebat Beit), in particular, is best understood as a grouping in itself; the term means literally "Seven Houses," and refers to seven specific Western Gurage groups and lects. Silt'e is more closely related to Amharic than it is to Soddo.
As the Gurage people are surrounded by speakers of Cushitic languages, these languages have influenced the Gurage languages perhaps even more than they have other Ethiopian Semitic languages. For example, the East Gurage languages have a ten-vowel system characteristic of the neighboring Cushitic languages rather than the seven-vowel system common to most other Ethiopian Semitic languages, including the West Gurage languages.
Over 50 % of the Gurage claim allegiance to Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, an Oriental Orthodox church related to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and another 40 % are adherents of Islam.[citation needed]
According to the 1994 Ethiopian census, self-identifying Gurage comprise about 4.3 % of Ethiopia's population, or about 3 million people.[4]
The Gurage live a sedentary life based on agriculture, involving a complex system of crop rotation and transplanting. Ensete is their main staple crop, but other cash crops are grown, which include coffee and chat. Animal husbandry is practiced, but mainly for milk supply and dung. Other foods consumed include green cabbage, cheese, butter, and roasted grains, with meat consumption being very limited (also used in rituals or ceremonies).
The Gurage, the writer Nega Mezlekia notes, "have earned a reputation as skilled traders".[5] One example of an enterprising Gurage is one Tekke, whom Nathaniel T. Kenney described as "an Ethiopian Horatio Alger, Jr.":
- he began his career selling old bottles and tin cans; the Emperor [Haile Selassie] recently rewarded his achievement in creating his plantation by calling him to Addis Ababa and decorating him.[6]
[edit] Notable Gurage
- Professor Berhanu Abegaz, a chemist specializing in medicinal plants, William and Mary College, USA; the founder of the Chemical Society of Ethiopia, and the AAU and University of Botswna postgraduate degree programs in chemistry.[7]
- Dr. Berhanu Nega, PhD in economics; elected mayor of Addis Ababa
- Degif Petros Banksira, a Semitic languages professor at MIT and author of, The Morphology of Chaha. His mathematical methods to study linguistics as regards to Chaha is praised, therefore new approach to study Ethiopian semitic languages.[8]
- Mahmoud Ahmed, singer
- Dr. Yacob Haile-Mariam - NSU professor of Business Law, former Senior Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
- Gebreyesus HaileMariam - First Ethiopian Author to write a book in Guragigna. He has also written several books in Amharic.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b "Census 2007", first draft, Table 5.
- ^ Vaughan, Sarah. Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia (Chapter 7). PhD Dissertation. Edinburgh, Scotland: University of Edinburgh, 2003.
- ^ Henze, Layers of Time (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 112.
- ^ Ethiopia: A Model Nation of Minorities (accessed 6 April 2006)
- ^ Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena's Belly (New York: Picador, 2000), p. 227.
- ^ Kenney, "Ethiopian Adventure", National Geographic, 127 (1965), p. 582.
- ^ http://www.arkat-usa.org/get-file/23171/
- ^ Book review
[edit] References
- Shack, William, 1966: The Gurage. A People of the Ensete Culture, London – New York – Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
- Shack, William,1997: "Hunger, Anxiety, and Ritual: Deprivation and Spirit Possession among the Gurage of Ethiopia" in Food and Culture: A Reader (pp. 125–137). Ed. Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik. New York: Routledge.
- Worku Nida 2005: "Gurage ethno-historical survey". In: Siegbert Uhlig (ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Vol. 2: D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 929-935.
