DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0027
THE FOLK-LITERATURE OF THE GALLA OF
SOUTHERN ABYSSINIA
INTRODUCTION
Almost all of the texts printed in this article are composed in the dialects of the Ma?ca
Galla; and particularly in those of the northeastern Macca groups: Lieqa, Lfmmu, Guma.
The Galla apply the name Macca to their tribes living in the districts beyond the Gibie
River; that is, the five independent Galla kingdoms of Guma, G6mma, Gfmma, Giera, and
Lfmmu; the Ilu, the N6nnb, and the five Lieqa tribes. In the present Galla language, the
word macca means both “ company of soldiers ” and “ people.” Thus, with a change in
sense analogous to the Amharic saw, “ man,” in the phrase ya-saw agar, “ land of men,” i.e.
“ foreign country,” and to the Arabic bilddu ’nndsi, which has the same meaning,
macca, “people ” also signifies “ stranger,” “ enemy.” Therefore the Galla living beyond the
Gibie are called Macca Gamdti, “ the people of the other bank,” by the Tulama of Shoa.
I do not intend to give in the following notes a definite, scientific classification of the
Galla dialects, but by coordinating and publishing the material collected from natives
during my researches, and by a careful analysis of the work already accomplished by travel-
lers and missionaries, I hope to lay a foundation for future attempts to classify, within each
group of dialects, the sub-dialects today unknown. As a result of such classification, I
think the philologists will distinguish two large groups of Galla dialects, the Northern
Galla and the Southern Galla.
Northern Galla, that is, the Galla spoken in Abyssinia, is divided into three groups of
dialects:
I. Macca dialects, corresponding to the dialect called by Tutscheck, “ the Galla of the
Gogab River.” Among the Macca dialects, I distinguish the northeastern group, — Lfmmu,
Guma, Lieqa, N6nnb, — and the southwestern group of which the principal dialect is
spoken in Gimma Abba Gifar. The difference between these sub-groups consists principally
in phonetic and lexicological peculiarities, e.g. the dialect of Gimma preserves the consonan-
tal diphthongs, F, r’.1
II. Tulama dialects spoken in Shoa, with dialectal peculiarities by the Abbiccu-Galan
and Salalie tribes. In addition to lexicological differences and the greater influence of
Amharic vocabularies, the Tulama dialects also differ grammatically from the Macca, e.g.
in Tulama the pronominal suffix of the first person singular is -ktyd; in Macca -ko. The
Tulama dialects have two sets of pronominal suffixes: masculine, -klya, -kie; feminine,
-tiya, -tie, etc. The Macca dialects show no difference between the masculine and feminine
gender of the pronominal suffix.
1 Vide infra, p. 17.
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SOUTHERN ABYSSINIA
INTRODUCTION
Almost all of the texts printed in this article are composed in the dialects of the Ma?ca
Galla; and particularly in those of the northeastern Macca groups: Lieqa, Lfmmu, Guma.
The Galla apply the name Macca to their tribes living in the districts beyond the Gibie
River; that is, the five independent Galla kingdoms of Guma, G6mma, Gfmma, Giera, and
Lfmmu; the Ilu, the N6nnb, and the five Lieqa tribes. In the present Galla language, the
word macca means both “ company of soldiers ” and “ people.” Thus, with a change in
sense analogous to the Amharic saw, “ man,” in the phrase ya-saw agar, “ land of men,” i.e.
“ foreign country,” and to the Arabic bilddu ’nndsi, which has the same meaning,
macca, “people ” also signifies “ stranger,” “ enemy.” Therefore the Galla living beyond the
Gibie are called Macca Gamdti, “ the people of the other bank,” by the Tulama of Shoa.
I do not intend to give in the following notes a definite, scientific classification of the
Galla dialects, but by coordinating and publishing the material collected from natives
during my researches, and by a careful analysis of the work already accomplished by travel-
lers and missionaries, I hope to lay a foundation for future attempts to classify, within each
group of dialects, the sub-dialects today unknown. As a result of such classification, I
think the philologists will distinguish two large groups of Galla dialects, the Northern
Galla and the Southern Galla.
Northern Galla, that is, the Galla spoken in Abyssinia, is divided into three groups of
dialects:
I. Macca dialects, corresponding to the dialect called by Tutscheck, “ the Galla of the
Gogab River.” Among the Macca dialects, I distinguish the northeastern group, — Lfmmu,
Guma, Lieqa, N6nnb, — and the southwestern group of which the principal dialect is
spoken in Gimma Abba Gifar. The difference between these sub-groups consists principally
in phonetic and lexicological peculiarities, e.g. the dialect of Gimma preserves the consonan-
tal diphthongs, F, r’.1
II. Tulama dialects spoken in Shoa, with dialectal peculiarities by the Abbiccu-Galan
and Salalie tribes. In addition to lexicological differences and the greater influence of
Amharic vocabularies, the Tulama dialects also differ grammatically from the Macca, e.g.
in Tulama the pronominal suffix of the first person singular is -ktyd; in Macca -ko. The
Tulama dialects have two sets of pronominal suffixes: masculine, -klya, -kie; feminine,
-tiya, -tie, etc. The Macca dialects show no difference between the masculine and feminine
gender of the pronominal suffix.
1 Vide infra, p. 17.
11