Qwara, or Qwareña (called "Falashan" in some older sources), was one of two Agaw dialects, spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) of the Qwara area. It was a dialect of Qimant.
The language was on the decline in the early 20th century, as it was being slowly replaced by Amharic. During Operation Solomon, most of its remaining speakers were airlifted to Israel, where it continued to lose ground to Hebrew.
Several early Falashan manuscripts, using the Ge'ez alphabet, exist; in more recent times, the language has been recorded by several linguists and travellers, starting with Flad in 1866.
Famous quotes containing the word dialect:
“The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)