Language (tugo)

Mursi is one of a number of closely related languages spoken in the southwest Ethiopian borderlands which have been classified as ‘Surmic’, within the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan ‘super family’. These languages include Didinga, Narim, Murle, Tenet and Baale in the Sudan, and (apart from Mursi), Chai, Tirma, Bodi, Me’en, and Kwegu/Muguji in Ethiopia.

Classification of Surmic languages, from Gerrit Dimmendaal (ed.) Surmic Languages and Cultures, Rudger Koppe Verlag, Cologne, 1998, p. 13.

Until recently, Mursi was not a written language, but orthographies now exist, using both Amharic and Latin-based script. An Amharic-based orthography has been developed by members of the missionary organisation, SIM who have been working amongst the Mursi at Makki (known as Mako to the Mursi), in the Mago Valley, since 1989. A Latin-based Mursi orthography has been developed by Moges Yigezu, of Addis Ababa University. while David Turton, Moges Yigezu and Olisarali Olibui have compiled a simple Mursi-Amharic-English dictionary for use in schools.

More information

On the Nilo-Saharan languages of Ethiopia, see: M.L. Bender, 'Nilo-Saharan Overview' in M.L. Bender (ed.), The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, African Studies Centre, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 1976, pp. 439-483.

On the Surmic group of languages, see: Moges Yigezu, A comparative study of the phonetics and phonology of Surmic languages. Ph.D dissertation. Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2002

For a linguistic summary of Mursi see: (1) David Turton and M.L. Bender, ‘Mursi’, in M.L. Bender (ed.) The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. African Studies Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 1976, pp. 533-61. (2) David Turton, ‘Le Mun (Mursi)’, in J. Perrot (ed.) Les langues dans le Monde ancien et moderne: Les langues de l'Afrique subsaharienne, pidgins et creoles. CNRS, Paris, 1981, pp. 335-349.