nammay

• lammáy

From Proto-Cushitic [Term?]. Cognates include Saho lamma, Oromo lama, Sidamo lame, Somali lába, Daasanach naama and Iraqw tám (“three”).

At some point the irregular shift *l > n occurred, but the original form is still present in some dialects as lammáy.

• IPA^(key): /namˈmaj/ [nʌmˈmʌj]
• Hyphenation: nam‧may

nammáy m (plural nammammáy m)

1. two, duo
   • 2006, “Ruut 1:2 [Ruth 1:2]”, in Nabuwwa kee malikwa [Prophets and kings]‎^[1]:

     Too waqdi Alimelek deqsita num, lab-xayloh nammay kee barra gabat hayya heeh, Yuudâ-baaxok Beetlacam deqsitta magaalak Mooyab deqsita marih baaxo fan dulah gexe.

     So a man called Elimelek, he went together with two sons and a wife, he migrated from a town called Betlehem in Judea to the country of the nation called Moab.

• When used as a determiner, the genitive case is used:

  Nammá númu. ― Two people.

• When counting, the predicative case is used.

• Mario Capomazza (1907), “nammei”, in La lingua degli Afar: Vocabulario Italiano-Dankalo e Dankalo-Italiano [The language of the Afar: Italian-Dankal and Dankal-Italian dictionary], Macerata: Unione Tipografica, page 164
• E. M. Parker; R. J. Hayward (1985), “nammay”, in An Afar-English-French dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English), University of London, →ISBN