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Bench |
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Bench (Bencnon, Shenon or Mernon, formerly called Gimira) is a Northern Omotic language of the Gimojan subgroup, spoken by
about 174,000 people (as of 1998) in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern
Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira. It has three varieties, Benchnon, Shenon, and Mernon, which Blench
(2006) considers to be distinct languages but which Rapold (2006) states are ... mutually intelligible... varieties of one
and the same language. In unusual variance from most of the other languages in Africa, Bench has retroflex consonant phonemes.
The language is also noteworthy in that it has six phonemic tones, one of only a handful of languages in the world that have
this many. Bench has a whistled form used primarily by male speakers, which permits communication over greater distances than
spoken Bench. The whistle can be created using the lips or made from a hollow created with both hands. Additionally, this
form of the language may be communicated via the 5 stringed krar. |
Names (more)[br] Bentcheg[de] Bench [en] Bench language [fi] Bench [fr] Gimira [hr] Bench [pt] Língua bench |
Language type : Living
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Bench. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : bcqLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/bcqhttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:bcq More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: bcqFreebase ISO 639-3 : bcq GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |