Kunama

Kunama is a language isolate spoken in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Eritrea.

Kunama · 14.6°N 37.5°E

An isolate: no relationship to any other known language has been demonstrated.

The Kunama language is spoken by the Kunama people of the Gash-Barka Region in western Eritrea and just across the Ethiopian border. It is a member of the Kunama language family, which is included as part of the proposed wider Nilo-Saharan language family, though it is distantly related to the other languages, if at all. The language has several dialects including: Barka, Marda, Aimara, Odasa, Tika, Lakatakura, Sokodasa, Takazze-Setit and Tigray. Ilit and Bitama are not mutually intelligible and so may be considered distinct languages.

In 1985, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front decided to use the Latin script for all non-Semitic languages in Eritrea, including Kunama. Kunama has been used in some publications, including in a translation of the Gospel of Mark first published in 1906.

From Wikipedia · Kunama language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Kunama

Meaning	Word	Romanization
woman	darka
person	ka*
name	kida*
eye	wa*
ear	ukuna*
nose	bobona*
tooth	ma*
tongue	Nela*
hand	kona*
blood	kokoba*
bone	saNga*
skin	agala*
knee	kokita*
breast	kuta*
liver	desa*
water	bia
fire	toma*
sun	wiya*
star	Sunda*
stone	uga*
mountain	aya*
tree	ela*
leaf	durfa*
night	awada*
dog	ta*
fish	isa*
louse	tila*
one	ela*
two	bare*
I	aba*