Suri language

Suri
Surma
Native to	Ethiopia
Region	Bench Maji Zone
Ethnicity	Suri, Tirma
Native speakers	27,000 (2007 census)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic Kir–Abbaian Surmic South Southeast Suri–Mursi Suri
Dialects	Tirma Chai
Writing system	Ethiopic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	suq
Glottolog	suri1267[2]

Suri (Churi, Dhuri, Shuri, Shuro), is a Nilo-Saharan Eastern Sudanic language, of the Surmic grouping. It is spoken in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR) in Ethiopia, to the South Sudan border, and across the border in South Sudan by the Suri. The language has over 80% lexical similarity to Mursi.^[3] The language is often referred to by another form of its name, Surma, after which the Surmic branch of Eastern Sudanic is named, but that form is frequently used for the three related languages spoken by the Surma people: Suri, Mursi, and Me'en.

Suri is spoken in two dialect by two nationalities, the Tirma (Tirmaga, Cirma, Dirma, Terema, Terna, Tid, Tirima, Tirmagi) and the Chai (Caci, Cai).

References

1. Ethiopia 2007 Census
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Suri". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Suri language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

Bibliography

• Abbink, Jon, Michael Bryant & Daniel Bambu. 2013. Suri Orature: An Introduction to the Society, Language and Oral Culture of the Suri People (Southwest Ethiopia). Cologne: R. Köppe Publishers, 203 pp..
• Bryant, Mike and Bargola Olekibo, compilers. 1997. Surichen ko aranjacan ko golacan (Suri–English–Amharic dictionary). 2nd ed. S.l.: Surma Translation Project. 65 p.
• Bryant, Michael G. 1999. Aspects of Tirmaga Grammar. MA thesis. University of Texas, Arlington.
• Last, Marco and Deborah Lucassen. 1998. "A Grammatical Sketch on Chai, a Southeastern Surmic Language". in: Dimmendaal, Gerrit and Marco Last (eds.) Surmic Languages and Cultures. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Köln. pp. 375–436.
• Unseth, Peter. 1997. "Disentangling the Two Languages Called 'Suri'". Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 7: 49-69.
• Last, Marco and Deborah Lucassen. 1998. "Violence and Political Discourse Among the Chai Suri". in: Dimmendaal, Gerrit and Marco Last (eds.) Surmic Languages and Cultures. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Köln. pp. 323.

External links

• Endangered Languages Project -- Suri
• Surma People
• Suri basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database