Dime

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A language of Ethiopia

ISO 639-3
dim
Alternate Names
Dim-af, Dim-ap, Dima
User Population

1,100, all users. L1 users: 570 (2007 census), decreasing. L2 users: 530. Ethnic population: 870 (2007 census).

Location

Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ region: north of Omo river, just before it turns south.

Language Maps
Language Status

6a (Vigorous).

Classification
Afro-Asiatic, Omotic, South
Dialects

None known. Lexical similarity: 47% with Hamer-Banna [amf].

Typology

SOV; nominal morphology includes plural, definiteness and gender; case suffixes on NP; modifiers may precede or follow their head; subject agreement marking is minimal and shows a distinction of first person vs others in the indicative; these subject agreement markers are absent in interrogatives; verbal morphology further includes aspect, negation and derivational suffixes (causative, passive, reciprocal); 7 vowels; tonal (2 tones).

Language Use

Used by all. Also use Aari [aiw].

Language Development

Literacy rate in L2: 10%. Grammar.

Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Dime
Writing

Unwritten [Qaax].

Other Comments

Population diminished through disease and war.