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Ganza language

Last updated: 2025-08-02 01:26:29

Ganza language
Ganza
غانزا Ganzo
Native toSudan, Ethiopia
RegionAsosa Zone of Benishangul-Gumuz Region, Blue Nile State
Native speakers
3,000 (2007)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3gza
Glottologganz1246
ELPGanza

Ganza, also known as Ganzo or Koma, is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic family spoken in the Al Kurumik District of the Blue Nile (state) in Sudan and in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, specifically in the village districts of Penishuba and Yabeldigis.

It also goes by the names Ganzo, Gwami, Koma, and Koma-Ganza.[1]

Phonology

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ ʔ̃
Plosive voiceless p t k ʔ
ejective pʼ tʼ kʼ
voiced b d ɡ
Fricative voiceless s ʃ h
ejective sʼ
voiced z
Approximant l j w
Trill r

Ganza does not utilize consonant length phonemically.[2]: 106 

Vowels[2]: 107 
FrontBack
Close iu
Mid eo
Open a

Although vowel length is typically contrastive in Omotic languages, Ganza does not have a clear contrast between long and short vowel phonemes. Instead, Ganza has predictable utterance-final vowel lengthening and a set of monosyllabic words with double vowels.[2]: 109 

References

  • Smolders, Joshua. 2015. A Wordlist of Ganza. Addis Ababa: SIL Ethiopia

Notes

  1. 1 2 Ganza at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. 1 2 3 Smolders, Joshua (2016). "A Phonology of Ganza" (pdf). Linguistic Discovery. 14 (1): 86–144. doi:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.470. Retrieved 2017-01-16.


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