The present paper is a first attempts of an historical reconstruction on the transmission of the number category “paucal” in the area of the Abbaya and C'amo lakes in Southern Ethiopia. The languages involved are Bayso (Cushitic), Haro (Omotic) and Haro's strongly related sister-languages Ganjule and Gets'ame.
The present situation of bilingualism of the Haro in Bayso suggests that Bayso has passed the paucal to the Haro. However, the presence of the paucal in the other documented dialect of Haro, Ganjule, makes this hypothesis untenable since the Ganjule do not speak Bayso and have no particulal relation with the Bayso group. There is no description of the other dialect of the cluster, Gets'ame, but, according to Haro oral traditions, the Haro come from the Gets'ame, as well as their language. It is, therefore, very likely that the Gets'ame language has also the paucal. The paper presents two hypotheses that explains the presence of the paucal in these languages of the Abbaya and C'amo lakes.
