Botanists study plants. Ethnologists study ethnic groups including their language. Ethnobotany is an interface between botany and ethnology dealing with the perception of ethnic groups about plant life surrounding them. Language, as the mirror of the mind of speakers, is central in ethnobotanical studies. This work describes the linguistic properties of wild plant names and traditional botanical knowledge among three ethnolingistic groups in northwestern Ethiopia: Awi, Gumuz and Shinasha. The ethnolingistic groups speak Awni (Cushitic), Gumuz (Nilo-Saharan) and Shinasha (Omotic) languages, respectively. The purpose of this study is to document the names and uses of wild plants from three ethnolinguistic communities of Ethiopia: the Awi (A), Gumuz (G), and Shinasha (S) - henceforth AGS. The study also attempts to describe the traditional botanical knowledge (henceforth TBK of these groups in the identification and classification of their plant life.

This handbook provides a comprehensive account of the languages spoken in Ethiopia, exploring both their structures and features and their function and use in society. The first part of the volume provides background and general information relating to Ethiopian languages, including their demographic distribution and classification, language policy, scripts and writing, and language endangerment. Subsequent parts are dedicated to the four major language families in Ethiopia - Cushitic, Ethiosemitic, Nilo-Saharan, and Omotic - and contain studies of individual languages, with an initial introductory overview chapter in each part. Both major and less-documented languages are included, ranging from Amharic and Oromo to Zay, Gawwada, and Yemsa. The final part explores languages that are outside of those four families, namely Ethiopian Sign Language, Ethiopian English, and Arabic. With its international team of senior researchers and junior scholars, The Oxford Handbook of Ethiopian Languages will appeal to anyone interested in the languages of the region and in African linguistics more broadly.

This monograph introduces students and scholars in linguistics, anthropology, and intercultural communication to anthropological linguistics, with a special focus on Africa. Among the topics addressed are semantic fields such as kinship or colour terminology, spatial orientation, linguistic relativity and the link between language and cognition, onomastics, the ethnography of communication, interactional sociolinguistics, emotions, (im)politeness strategies, conversation analysis, and non-verbal communication.

This is the definitive African text on ecological ethics, African environmental spirituality, a theology of creation, and climate justice. The contributors to this important volume explore the common threats facing this earth our common home and the particular threats facing Africa because of our sick environment, unsustainable development practices, and the false narratives and programs of modernity in the African Motherland. Here, African environmentalists, theologians, and peace advocates in conversation with Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, develop a roadmap for pastoral, local, and global education on ecological consciousness in order to bring about ecological conversion. African ecological wisdom is also offered as indispensable resources for recovering the intimate connection of all creatures and all peoples and as a praxis of solidarity for the poor, and our fragile earth.