Ethiopia as a Linguistic Area

Abstract

The Ethiopian linguistic area is one of the most famous linguistic areas in the world. It is characterized by phonological, grammatical, and lexical features. After summarizing the research done since 1945, this article focuses on the contradictory views concerning the validity of most of the features. For phonological and grammatical features, Ferguson (1976), which is still the most important study, is the starting point of discussion. Lexical features are dealt with only by Hayward (1991, 2000) and there has been therefore little controversy.