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| 1,867,377 (2007 census)[1] | |||
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Gurage is an ethnic group in Ethiopia. According to the 2007 national census, its population is 1,867,377 people (or 2.53% of the total population of Ethiopia), of whom 792,659 are urban dwellers. This is 2.53% of the total population of Ethiopia, or 7.52% of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR).[1] The Gurage people inhabit a fertile, semi-mountainous region in southwest Ethiopia, about 150 miles southwest of Addis Ababa, bordering the Awash River in the north, the Gibe River (a tributary of the Omo) to the southwest, and Lake Zway in the east. The Gurage nation consists of three dialectically varied subgroups, Northern, Eastern and Western. However, the largest group within the Eastern subgroup, known as the Silt'e, identify foremost as Muslims.[2] In 2000, the Silt'e, refusing to identify as Gurage, voted overwhelmingly for the establishment of a separate special administrative unit within SNNPR by the EPRDF government.[2]
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Description [link]
According to the historian Paul B. Henze, their origins are explained by traditions of a military expedition to the south during the last years of the Aksumite Empire, which left military colonies that eventually became isolated from both northern Ethiopia and each other.[3]
The Gurage languages do not constitute a coherent linguistic grouping, rather, the term is both linguistic and cultural. The Gurage people speak a number of separate languages, all belonging to the Southern branch of the Ethiopian Semitic language family (which also includes Amharic). The languages are often referred to collectively as "Guraginya" by other Ethiopians (-inya is the Amharic suffix for most Ethiopian Semitic languages).
Gurage, also known as Guragie or ጉራጌ, is written with the Ethiopic alphabet. The Gurage subset of Ethiopic has 44 independent glyphs.
There is no general agreement on how many languages or dialects there are, in particular within the West Gurage grouping.
The following are listed as separate languages by Ethnologue: Soddo (Kistane), Inor, Mesqan, Mesmes, Silt'e (not strictly speaking a Gurage language since the people do not consider themselves Gurage), Zay, and Sebat Bet Gurage. Sebat Bet (or Sebat Beit), in particular, is best understood as a grouping in itself; the term means literally "Seven Houses," and refers to seven specific Western Gurage groups and lects. Silt'e is more closely related to Amharic than it is to Soddo.
As the Gurage people are surrounded by speakers of Cushitic languages, these languages have influenced the Gurage languages perhaps even more than they have other Ethiopian Semitic languages. For example, the East Gurage languages have a ten-vowel system characteristic of the neighboring Cushitic languages rather than the seven-vowel system common to most other Ethiopian Semitic languages, including the West Gurage languages.
Over 50 % of the Gurage claim allegiance to Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, an Oriental Orthodox church related to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and another 40 % are adherents of Islam.[citation needed]
According to the 1994 Ethiopian census, self-identifying Gurage comprise about 4.3 % of Ethiopia's population, or about 3 million people.[4]
The Gurage live a sedentary life based on agriculture, involving a complex system of crop rotation and transplanting. Ensete is their main staple crop, but other cash crops are grown, which include coffee and chat. Animal husbandry is practiced, but mainly for milk supply and dung. Other foods consumed include green cabbage, cheese, butter, and roasted grains, with meat consumption being very limited (also used in rituals or ceremonies).
The Gurage, the writer Nega Mezlekia notes, "have earned a reputation as skilled traders".[5] One example of an enterprising Gurage is one Tekke, whom Nathaniel T. Kenney described as "an Ethiopian Horatio Alger, Jr.":
He began his career selling old bottles and tin cans; the Emperor [Haile Selassie] recently rewarded his achievement in creating his plantation by calling him to Addis Ababa and decorating him.[6]
Notable Gurage [link]
- Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis(Aba Mela), Ethiopian Minister of War, during the reigns of Menelik II, Iyasu V, Zauditu and Haile Selassie.
- Abba (Father) François Markos, Catholic priest, social worker, and educator[7]
- Mahmoud Ahmed, singer
- Berhanu Nega, elected as mayor of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Co-founder and chair of Ginbot 7, an opposition party, professor at Bucknell University.
- Dr.Yacob Haile-Mariam, a retired professor of business law at Norfolk State University; former Senior Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and an elected member of the Ethiopian parliament who had been held as a "prisoner of conscience" in Ethiopia.[list membership disputed]
See also [link]
Notes [link]
- ^ a b "Census 2007", first draft, Table 5.
- ^ a b Vaughan, Sarah (2003). "7" (PDF). Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia (Ph.D. thesis). University of Edinburgh. https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/605/2/vaughanphd.pdf.
- ^ Henze, Layers of Time (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 112.
- ^ Ethiopia: A Model Nation of Minorities (accessed 6 April 2006)
- ^ Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena's Belly (New York: Picador, 2000), p. 227.
- ^ Kenney, "Ethiopian Adventure", National Geographic, 127 (1965), p. 582.
- ^ Ato Assegid Negash. "François Markos". Dictionary of African Christian Biography. https://www.dacb.org/stories/ethiopia/markos_francois.html. Retrieved 2010-01-06.
References [link]
- Shack, William, 1966: The Gurage. A People of the Ensete Culture, London – New York – Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
- Shack, William,1997: "Hunger, Anxiety, and Ritual: Deprivation and Spirit Possession among the Gurage of Ethiopia" in Food and Culture: A Reader (pp. 125–137). Ed. Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik. New York: Routledge.
- Worku Nida 2005: "Gurage ethno-historical survey". In: Siegbert Uhlig (ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Vol. 2: D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 929-935.
External links [link]
- Gurage Research blog
- Gurage and Silte Research Group
- The Gurage People – Carolyn Ford with SIM in Ethiopia
- Facts about Gurage
- GeoHive
- Google map of Gurage
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