Anfillo
Anfillo is a Northern Omotic language spoken in Western Ethiopia by a few hundred people. The term Anfillo is used to refer both to the language and the people found in a small community in the so-called Anfillo Wereda, in the West Wellega Zone. The language is on the verge of extinction as it is spoken only by adults above the age of sixty. All younger generations have shifted to the Nilo-Saharan language of the Busase people.
Anfillo has five vowels and about 22 consonants. Long vowels and consonants do occur and may have phonemic value. The basic word order is Subject Object Verb. Nouns follow their modifier. Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect and mood. Three tenses are marked morphologically: present, past, and future. gender and number are expressed lexically.
References
- Goshu, Debela & Demeke, Girma Awgichew [2005] 'Some points on Anfillo' (unpublished handout, International Conference on Endangered Ethiopian Languages, Addis Ababa 27-30 April 2005).
- Wedekind, Klaus & Wedekind, Charlotte (2002) 'Sociolinguistic Survey Report on Languages of the Asosa-Begi-Komosha area, Part II' (SIL Electronic Survey Report 2002-055). [contains a map]