Eastern Oromo linguistic data

Word order, pitch accent, gender count, case marking, adposition direction, syllable structure, consonant inventory traits (ejectives), vowel system, morphological alignment, script, register stratification, speaker count, and geographic area. Each row is one feature with Eastern Oromo's value visible; you can add other languages to read the same feature side by side.

Typological features are merged from URIEL+ (Mortensen et al.) and a curated set authored against descriptive grammars. Speaker counts come from Ethnologue and Glottolog. Geographic area is computed from the Asher 2007 world language atlas. Similarity scores combine genetic distance, typological overlap, and lexical-borrowing data.

Both are major dialects of the Oromo language family, mutually intelligible with adjustment. Eastern Oromo (Qottu, in Hararge zone) shows distinctive vocabulary tied to its eastern Ethiopian setting, including Somali and Harari contact influence. West Central Oromo is closer to the Mecha-Tulama base of the Oromia regional standard. Speakers across the dialects can communicate, but the dialects are linguistically and demographically distinct.

ISO 639-3 splits Oromo into multiple codes covering the major dialects: gaz (West Central), hae (Eastern), gax (Borana-Arsi-Guji), ssn (Waata), and a few others. orm is the macrolanguage code covering all of them. The split reflects linguistic and demographic distinctions rather than full mutual unintelligibility.

They're sub-varieties of the same Oromo language family, sharing core typology (Cushitic SOV, agglutinative, two genders, pitch accent) and most cognate vocabulary. Cluster scores between them are high. The factor breakdown chip on the row tells you which dimensions contributed most.