Chara people explained

The Chara also known as the Tsara are a people group of Ethiopia. They form a part of the Gimira peoples of Ethiopia and live in the Kaffa Highlands,^[1] and the Debub Omo area.

Their three main villages are Geba a meša, Buna Anta, and Kumba, Ethiopia and they practise subsistence farming and hold to a syncretic religion of Oriental Orthodox Christianity with tribal practices.^[2] The Chara people speak their own Chara language a member of the Omotic Language group,^{[3] [4]} which is linguistically similar to Mela^[5] and the numerically much larger Wolaytta^{[6] [7]} both of which many Chara also speak.^[8] (See Ethiopian language map).

The number of Chara have been decimated due to slavery and war and are estimated to number between 16,500 and 6,984 (1994 census)^[9] people.

Notes and References

1. http://www.hornofafrica.org/pdf/Chara.pdf Chara
2. Yilma, Aklilu 2002 Sociolinguistic survey report on the Chara language of Ethiopia.
3. http://mereja.com/index/a-list-of-ethiopian-languages/ Ethiopian languages
4. https://www.academia.edu/746554/Switch-reference_and_Omotic-Cushitic_language_contact_in_Southwest_Ethiopia Switch-reference and Omotic-Cushitic language contact in Southwest Ethiopia
5. http://www-01.sil.org/silesr/2002/029/SILESR2002-029.pdf Sociolinguistic Survey Report of the Chara, Dime, Melo, and Nayi Languages of Ethiopia
6. http://www.ethnologue.com/country/et/languages/***EDITION*** ethnologue Africa
7. Yilma, Aklilu (1995), "Some notes on the Chara language: Sound system and noun morphology", S.L.L.E. linguistic reports 32: 2-12.
8. Chara language at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
9. http://www.daytranslations.com/blog/guide/ethiopia/4 Ethiopia