Editing Saho language (section)

==Overview==
Saho is spoken natively by the [[Saho people]]. Traditionally, they inhabit the territory in Eritrea bounded by the bay of Erafayle (ዓራፋሊ) in the east, the Laacasi Gade (ላዐሲ ጋደ) valleys in the south, and the [[Eritrean highlands]] to the west (the Shimejana district on the eastern flank of the South- or [[Debub]] region in what was formerly known as [[Akele Guzai]] province).

This speech area is bordered by other [[Afroasiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic]]-speaking communities, with [[Tigre language|Tigre]] speakers on the west and [[Afar language|Afar]] speakers on the east. In Ethiopia, Saho is primarily spoken in the [[Tigray Region]]. It has about 250,000 speakers in total and four main dialects:{{clarify|date=February 2024}} Northern dialect, mainly spoken by Casawurta (ዓሳኣዉርታ), Tharuuca (ጣሩዓ), Casabat Care (ዓሳባት ካረ), etc.; Central dialect is mainly spoken by Faqhat Xarak (ፋቃት ሓራክ) of Minifere (ሚኒ ፊረ); Southern dialect mainly spoken by Minifire (ሚኒ ፊረ), Xazo (ሓዞ/ዶ), Dabrti-meela ዳብሪ መላ), Irob (ኢሮብ), Sancafe (ሳንዓፈ).<ref>{{ethnologue25|ssy}}</ref>

The Saho also use the Arabic (special now Latin letters){{clarify|date=February 2024}} to document their history and render information.

The Saho language in former [[Italian Eritrea]] has received a strong influence of italian loanwords.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.academia.edu/5529047 |title=Italian loanwords in saho |language=it |last1=Banti |first1=Giorgio }}</ref>

Also recently the language is being used on the cyberspace as a tool of communication. And there is one website completely designed with saho language.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.makaado.net/ |title=Makaado.net - the Saho on line Community |access-date=2013-11-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203011134/http://www.makaado.net/ |archive-date=2013-12-03 }}</ref>

Saho is so closely related to the Cushitic [[Afar language]], spoken as a mother tongue by the [[Afar people]], that some linguists regard the two tongues as dialects of a single "Saho–Afar language". Regardless, it has been shown that at least in their [[lexicon|basic lexicon]] the two can be cleanly separated.<ref name="Banti-Vergari">{{cite conference|first1=Giorgio|last1=Banti|first2=Moreno|last2=Vergari|title=Aspects of Saho dialectology|year=2017|book-title=Afroasiatica Romana. Proceedings of the 15th meeting of Afroasiatic linguistics|pages=65–81|publisher=Sapienza Università de Roma}}</ref>