The pragmatics of greeting, felicitation and condolence expressions in four Ethiopian languages*

Abstract

In this paper, I intend to make a comparative description of the structural patterns and pragmatics of greeting, felicitation and condolence expressions of four Ethiopian languages. The languages are Amharic, Oromo, Wolayita and Nuer; the first three belong to the Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic sub-groups of the Afroasiatic phylum respectively, whereas the last one, Nuer, belongs to the Nilotic sub-group of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. The purpose of the description is to see whether there are features in the expressions to be examined which are shared by these languages and also whether the the shared features distinguish the languages as a whole from other languages outside the Ethiopian region.' Since the languages represent all the four genetic groups in the country, any shared features