Oromo (Harar)
Afro-Asiatic family · Lowland East Cushitic branch · Africa
Oromo (Harar) is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Glottalized Consonants, WALS codes Oromo (Harar) as “Ejectives and implosives”, a value held by 14 of the 567 languages coded, Hausa and Iraqw among them.
On Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases, WALS codes Oromo (Harar) as “Other types”, a value held by 6 of the 236 languages coded, Tagalog and Malagasy among them.
On Case Syncretism, 6 of 7 other Afro-Asiatic languages coded have the value “Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal”; Oromo (Harar) has “Inflectional case marking is syncretic for core cases only”.
Contrast Oromo (Harar) with Dizi or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Oromo (Harar), rarest first.
- Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun PhrasesNominative - accusative (marked nominative)6 of 190
- 'Want' Complement SubjectsBoth construction types exist14 of 283
- Third Person Zero of Verbal Person MarkingZero realization of some third person singular forms21 of 380
- Voicing and Gaps in Plosive SystemsMissing /p/33 of 567
- Occurrence of Nominal PluralityPlural only in human nouns, optional20 of 291
- Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard NegationA/Fin and A/Cat21 of 297
- Asymmetrical Case-MarkingSubtractive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking20 of 261
- Coding of Nominal PluralityNo plural98 of 1,066
Inside the Afro-Asiatic family
Oromo (Harar) matches the most frequent Afro-Asiatic value on 81 of the 126 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (64%). Among the 24 Afro-Asiatic languages profiled here, that rate ranks 13th from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Oromo (Harar); the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Oromo (Harar) for 126 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 114 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Oromo (Harar) shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | 94 of 563 |
| Tone | Complex tone system | 88 of 527 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Moderately high | 102 of 564 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives | 158 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | 235 of 469 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 287 of 564 |
| Syllable Structure | Moderately complex syllable structure | 274 of 486 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels absent | 180 of 244 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 of 567 |
| Uvular Consonants | No uvulars | 470 of 567 |
| Absence of Common Consonants | All present | 503 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Word structure 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P has no marking | 42 of 236 |
| Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb | 6-7 categories per word | 31 of 145 |
| Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | Subject person/number marking is syncretic | 60 of 198 |
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Predominantly suffixing | 406 of 969 |
| Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Monoexponential case | 71 of 162 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent marking or other type | 121 of 236 |
| Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | 278 of 368 |
| Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively concatenative | 125 of 165 |
| Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | monoexponential TAM | 127 of 160 |
| Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | 219 of 235 |
Nouns and pronouns 22
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Cases | 6-7 case categories | 37 of 261 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | Gender distinctions in 3rd person singular only | 61 of 378 |
| Number of Genders | Two | 50 of 257 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic and formal assignment | 59 of 257 |
| Indefinite Pronouns | Generic-noun-based indefinites | 85 of 326 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | No possessive affixes | 260 of 902 |
| Definite Articles | Neither definite nor indefinite article | 198 of 620 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based gender system | 84 of 257 |
| Ordinal Numerals | First, two-th, three-th | 110 of 321 |
| Indefinite Articles | Neither indefinite nor definite | 198 of 534 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No inclusive/exclusive opposition | 79 of 200 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | 114 of 261 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | 452 of 1,031 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated | 74 of 168 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | 100 of 225 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | 126 of 234 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Adpositions without person marking | 209 of 378 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | No inclusive/exclusive opposition | 120 of 200 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction | 136 of 207 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | 213 of 322 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
Noun phrases 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Action Nominal Constructions | Possessive-Accusative | 29 of 168 |
| Possessive Classification | Two classes | 94 of 243 |
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are different | 125 of 301 |
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 17
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | Imperative | 29 of 193 |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Suppletion according to tense | 36 of 193 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | 65 of 240 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for either possibility or necessity | 66 of 207 |
| The Perfect | Other perfect | 80 of 222 |
| The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | 182 of 496 |
| The Past Tense | Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 94 of 222 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | Grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 101 of 222 |
| The Future Tense | No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction | 112 of 222 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | 292 of 548 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | 667 of 1,131 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| Verbal Number and Suppletion | No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples | 159 of 193 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | 271 of 319 |
Word order 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | Oblique-object-verb (XOV) | 48 of 500 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Noun-genitive (NGen) | 468 of 1,249 |
| Position of Polar Question Particles | No question particle | 355 of 884 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem) | 562 of 1,225 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object precedes verb (OV) | 712 of 1,518 |
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj) | 227 of 481 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | 577 of 1,184 |
| Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral follows noun (NNum) | 608 of 1,154 |
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Initial subordinator word | 398 of 659 |
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj) | 879 of 1,367 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial | 615 of 902 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause follows noun (NRel) | 579 of 824 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 22
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Negative Morphemes | Double negation | 119 of 1,157 |
| Polar Questions | Interrogative intonation only | 173 of 955 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of only the A argument | 73 of 378 |
| Predicative Possession | Have-Possessive | 63 of 240 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have mixed encoding | 103 of 386 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Identical | 117 of 386 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Nominative - accusative (standard) | 61 of 172 |
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy | 130 of 297 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is possible | 175 of 386 |
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb | 187 of 379 |
| Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Indirect-object construction | 189 of 378 |
| Applicative Constructions | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| Other Roles of Applied Objects | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative alignment | 212 of 380 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| Reciprocal Constructions | Distinct from reflexive | 99 of 175 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Purposive type but no sequential type | 68 of 118 |
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs | 437 of 711 |
| Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | 146 of 194 |
| Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | 146 of 186 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
| Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation | 170 of 206 |
Complex sentences 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced | 84 of 174 |
| Relativization on Obliques | Gap Strategy | 55 of 112 |
| Reason Clauses | Balanced | 90 of 169 |
| Purpose Clauses | Deranked | 102 of 170 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Gap | 125 of 166 |
Vocabulary 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Tea | Words derived from Sinitic cha | 110 of 230 |
| Numeral Bases | Decimal | 125 of 196 |
| M in Second Person Singular | No m in second person singular | 152 of 230 |
| M in First Person Singular | No m in first person singular | 177 of 230 |
| N-M Pronouns | No N-M pronouns | 194 of 230 |
| M-T Pronouns | No M-T pronouns | 200 of 230 |