The main objective of this study was documenting Chabu language: collecting arnrepresentative natural linguistic data with a view to multifunctional later use in scientificrnwork and practical applications and to archive in digital archives as important repositoriesrnof the language. To make the documentation a good representative of the Chabu language,rnvariety of natural texts of multiple genres have been collected, although only a few arernused for the dissertation. This thesis, as part of the documentationâ€™ investigated thernendangerment situation of Chabu and described the grammar of the language.rnTo this end, the study employed the Community Based Language Research (CBLR) modelrn(Czaykowska-Higgins, 2009) in its loose sense and Basic Linguistic Theory (Dryer 2006)rnas theorethical framework. Although the community members did not participate in thernplanning stage most of the data collection and organisation activities were done inrncollaboration with members of the Chabu community. In order to make the documentationrncomprehensive the study followed an extended documentation format that enabled it torndocument various texts from multiple genres, compile the grammar of a language andrnproduce a dictionary with about 1700 lexical items.rnThe data were gathered in six months stay over three years period through participant andrnnon participant observations, interview, and elicitation techniques with the help ofrnmultimedia technology (video and photo cameras and audio recorder) both in natural andrninduced settings. The elicitation and the cross checking of the data was also done duringrnour stay with Chabu assistants in Meti, Tepi and Addis Ababa in about 10 additionalrnmonths.rnThe study explored that Chabu is facing a danger of extinction because of multiple factorsrnamong which lack of recognition is the most important. Chabu is found to score the lowestrnpoint in most of the parameters set by UNESCO as indicators of vitality. The study alsorndisclosed that the name â€œShaboâ€ which is found in most recent literature of Chabu has nornbase from the speaker community and neighboring ethnic groups.rnThe grammatical description revealed that Chabu has twenty four consonant and sevenrnvowel phonemes in which consonant gemination, vowel length and tone have phonemicrnstates.rnrnAs the study result revealed, Chabu nouns are found to be inflecting for number, gender,rndefiniteness and case. Chabu has a three way number and a two-way gender system thatrnare morphologically marked. Chabu pronoun system is found to be unique inrndistinguishing gender in three persons and three numbers. The person orientedrndemonstrative system distinguishes four distance categories (proximal, medial (near thernhearer), distal and invisible). The language is found to be having productive system ofrnnoun formation. Chabu does not have a separate word class of adjectives; all words thatrnserve as adjective have derivational relation with verbs.rnChabu verbs found to be inflected for person, gender, number, tense, aspect and mood byrnattaching `suffixes and prefixes to the main verb or to the auxiliary. The language has fourrntenses, three morphologically marked aspects, and a variety of directive moods. In verbrnstem formation, Chabu displays suffixation of derivational morphemes to verb roots andrnpartial root reduplication in some cases of frequentative formation.rnThe findings also disclosed that Chabu is an SOV language which allows some degree ofrnflexibly. Serial verbs, complement clauses, adverbial clauses, converbs, relative clauses,rnand coordination construction are among the attested multi clausal construction of Chabu.rnFinally, the study suggests that the Chabus and their heritage language need to bernrecognized and protected by both regional states and federal government. Thus, differentrnstrategies should be designed to salvage, preserve and promote the language and the culturrnof the Chabu by the regional administrations and by national policy makers.