Reported Speech

In general, I dislike reported speech. It isn’t horrible but even for native speakers it isn’t impossible to lose track of exactly who it was that performed the actions. For speakers of afaan Oromoo as a second language, people are not always forgiving of mistakes in considering how well someone speaks.

The example from stood out to me from Boontuu fi Hoolaa Ishee is the statement “Hoolaan kun yeroo xiqqoo booda in dhalti” jedhee akkoo Boontuutti home. Meaning “”This sheep is soon going to give birth” he told Bontu’s grandma.” The interesting part is in the double use of jedhee and hime. Jedhee means something like “he said” and hime means something like “he told.” Himuu is always used with the –tti ending on the word for the person who was told. For example natti himte means that you told me. Jechuu does not need such a combination and the example naa jette would mean you said to me.

Oftentimes, jechuu is combined with another verb to mean the person told you to specify what happened. For example, with the verb gaafachuu, I have seen questions be described as jedhee na gaafate to mean he asked me. Doubling verbs does not always happen but it does occur with some frequency.


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