Linguistic map of Eritrea; Dahalik is spoken in the dark purple island region (the coastal region, a lighter shade of purple, is the Arabic-speaking area)
Dahalik (ዳሃሊክ [haka (na)] dahālík, "[language (of)] the people of Dahlak";[2] also Dahaalik, Dahlik, Dahlak) is an endangered Afroasiatic language spoken exclusively in the Dahlak Archipelago in Eritrea. Its speech area is off the coast of Massawa, on three islands in the Dahlak Archipelago: Dahlak Kebir, Nora, and Dehil.
Dahalik belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family's Semitic branch, a member of the Northern branch of the Ethiopic group, and is closely related to Tigre and Tigrinya. It is said to be not mutually intelligible with Tigre and, according to Simeone-Senelle, is sufficiently different to be considered a separate language.[3] However, there are those who disagree.[4]
^Dahalik at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
^Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle: Dahālík, a newly discovered Afro-Semitic language spoken exclusively in Eritrea Archived 2013-10-02 at the Wayback Machine (PDF), in: shaebia.org, 2005
^*Simeone-Senelle, Marie-Claude. 2000. 'Situation linguistique dans le sud de l'Erythrée', in Wolff/Gensler (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd World Congress of African Linguistics, 1997, Köln: Köppe, p. 261–276.
^Idris, S. M. 2012. Dahalik: An Endangered Language or a Tigre Variety? Journal of Eritrean Studies 6 (1): 51–74.
Dahalik (ዳሃሊክ [haka (na)] dahālík, "[language (of)] the people of Dahlak"; also Dahaalik, Dahlik, Dahlak) is an endangered Afroasiatic language spoken...
Maria Tselam) and Dahalik, which is spoken in Dahlak archipelago. Intelligibility between the dialects is above 91% (except Dahalik), where intelligibility...
Dahlak Kebir has a population of around 2,500 people speaking the Dahaliklanguage. Its major industries include fishing, sea cucumber collection and...
of invertebrates. Sultanate of Dahlak Dahlak Marine National Park Dahaliklanguages "Eritrea's Dahlak Archipelago Islands are so remote, there's almost...
Marya Kayah) and Dahalik, which is spoken in the Dahlak Archipelago. Intelligibility between the dialects is above 91% (except Dahalik), where intelligibility...
Western South Semitic Ethiopic North Ethiopic Geʽez (Classical Ethiopic) Dahalik Tigre Tigrinya South Ethiopic Transversal South Ethiopic Amharic–Argobba...
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Eritrean descent Most languages spoken in Eritrea are from the Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan language family. Tigrinya Tigre Dahalik Arabic Beja Saho Afar...
endangerment is an evaluation assigned by UNESCO to the languages in the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Evaluation is given according to nine criteria...
Hebrew language spoken today. Developed as part of Hebrew's revival in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it is the official language of the...
with the Portuguese empire, resulting in much destruction. By 1526 the Dahalik sultan, Ahmad, had been degraded to a tributary. There was a short revival...
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