The Harla, also known as Harala, or Karala, were an ethnic group that once inhabited Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti. They spoke the Harla language, which belonged to either the Cushitic or Semitic branches of the Afroasiatic family.
The Harla, also known as Harala, or Karala, were an ethnic group that once inhabited Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti. They spoke the Harla language, which belonged to either the Cushitic or Semitic branches of the Afroasiatic family.
Harari is an Ethio-Semitic language spoken by the Harari people of Ethiopia. Old Harari is a literary language of the city of Harar, a central hub of Islam in the Horn of Africa. According to the 2007 Ethiopian census, it is spoken by 25,810 people. Harari is closely related to the Eastern Gurage languages, Zay, and Siltʼe, all of whom are believed to be linked to the now extinct Semitic Harla language. Locals or natives of Harar refer to their language as Gēy Sinan or Gēy Ritma 'language of the City' (Gēy is the word for how Harari speakers refer to the city of Harar, whose name is an exonym). According to Wolf Leslau, Sidama is the substratum language of Harari and influenced the vocabulary greatly. He identified unique Cushitic loanwords found only in Harari and deduced that it may have Cushitic roots.
Harari was originally written with a version of the Arabic script, Harari script, then the Ethiopic script was adopted to write the language. Some Harari speakers in diaspora write their language with the Latin alphabet.
The Ethiopian–Adal War, also known as the Abyssinian–Adal War and Futūḥ Al-Ḥabaša (Arabic: فتوح الحبش, lit. 'Conquest of Abyssinia'), was a war fought between the Christian Ethiopian Empire and the Muslim Adal Sultanate from 1529 to 1543. The Christian Ethiopian troops consisted of the Amhara, Tigrayans, Tigrinya and Agaw people, and at the closing of the war, supported by the Portuguese Empire with no less than four hundred musketeers. The Adal forces were composed of Harla/Harari, Somali, Afar as well as Arab and Turkish gunmen. Both sides would see the Maya mercenaries at times join their ranks. The conflict was followed shortly by the 16th century Ottoman-Ethiopian War