37.2520, Books: A Lexical and Phonological Reconstruction of Highland East Cushitic: Sosal (2026)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2520. Thu Jul 30 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2520, Books: A Lexical and Phonological Reconstruction of Highland East Cushitic: Sosal (2026)

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Date: 30-Jul-2026
From: Jan Martin [lotdissertations-fgw at uva.nl]
Subject: A Lexical and Phonological Reconstruction of Highland East Cushitic: Sosal (2026)


Title: A Lexical and Phonological Reconstruction of Highland East
Cushitic
Subtitle: including a Comparative East Cushitic Database
Series Title: LOT Dissertation Series
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke
(LOT)
           http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Book URL: https://dx.medra.org/10.48273/LOT0721

Author(s): Ahmed Sosal

Paperback
ISBN: 978-94-6093-506-0
Pages: 402
Price: 45 euros

Abstract:

The Highland East Cushitic (HEC) languages, including Burji, Hadiyya,
Kambaata, Sidaama, and Gedeo, are spoken by over twenty million people
in southern Ethiopia. Although their historical relatedness has long
been recognized, Proto-Highland East Cushitic (PHEC) and
Proto-Northern Highland East Cushitic have not previously been
reconstructed in a comprehensive and systematic way. This dissertation
addresses that gap.
Drawing on a comparative database of over 8,500 lexical entries from
23 East Cushitic languages, this study reconstructs major aspects of
the PHEC sound system, lexicon, and selected morphological items, and
traces how a common ancestral language diversified into five distinct
but related modern languages. It identifies the regular sound changes
that connect them. Along the way, it reveals discoveries such as the
systematic glottalization of sounds, the reversal of consonant
positions to allow feasible sound sequences, and evidence of
long-standing contact with neighboring Omotic and Oromo languages that
shaped the HEC sound systems in subtle but traceable ways.
The study also reconstructs shared morphological patterns, such as
verb derivations, case systems, and plural formations. On the basis of
combined phonological and morphological innovations, it refines
proposals for the internal subgrouping of HEC. The analysis supports
Burji as the earliest split and groups the remaining languages in a
Northern HEC branch.
The accompanying lexical database is made openly availableand links
source forms, cognate sets, and reconstructions, to support
transparency and reproducibility in comparative African linguistics.

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics

Language Family(ies): Highland East Cushitic (high1285)




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