Inor language

Inor
Ennemor
Native to	Ethiopia
Native speakers	(undated figure of 280,000)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic South Semitic Southwest Semitic Ethiopic South Ethiopic Outer South Ethiopic West Gurage Inor
Writing system	Ge'ez script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ior
Glottolog	inor1238
ELP

Inor (pronounced [inoːr]), sometimes called Ennemor, is an Afroasiatic language spoken in central Ethiopia. One of the Gurage languages, it is mainly spoken within the Gurage Zone in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, as well as by speakers of the language who have settled in Ethiopian cities, especially Addis Ababa. In addition to the morphological complexity that is common to all Semitic languages, Inor exhibits the very complex morphophonology characteristic of West Gurage languages.

Endegegn, Enner, Gyeto, and the extinct dialect Mesmes are all sometimes considered dialects of Inor.

Inor possesses nasal vowels, which are unusual for a Gurage language. Many of these may be the result of historical rhinoglottophilia.

Phonology

Consonants

Inor consonants

		labial		alveolar	alveo- palatal	palatal	velar		glottal
		plain	labial				plain	labial	plain	labial
Stops and affricates	ejective			t’	tʃ’	cʼ	k’	kʷ’
	voiceless	p	pʷ	t	tʃ	c	k	kʷ	ʔ	ʔʷ
	voiced	b	bʷ	d	dʒ	ɟ	ɡ	ɡʷ
Fricatives	voiceless	f	fʷ	s	ʃ	ç	x	xʷ
	voiced	(β)		z	ʒ
Nasals		m	mʷ	n		ɲ
Approximants				(l)		j		w
Rhotics				r

Sounds /b, n, mʷ/ when in lenited position are heard as [β, r̃, w̃].

Vowels

Inor vowels

	front	central	back
high	i	ɨ	u
mid	e	ə	o
low	æ	a

[ɨ] may be regarded as largely epenthetic and only marginally phonemic.