Ge'ez language

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This article is about the language. For the alphabet, see Ge'ez alphabet.
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Ge'ez
ግዕዝ Giʿiz
Spoken in: Eritrea, Ethiopia and Israel
Language extinction: Extinct by the 13th century, remains in use as a liturgical language
Language family: Afro-Asiatic
 Semitic
  South Semitic
   Ethiopic
    North Ethiopic
     Ge'ez 
Official status
Official language of: Liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church, Ethiopic Catholic Church, and Beta Israel
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: gez
ISO/FDIS 639-3: gez
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Ge'ez (also transliterated Gi'iz, Gəʿəz, and pronounced IPA: [ɡɨʕɨz]; ISO 639-2 gez) is an ancient South Semitic language that had developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, as the language of the peasantry. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court.

Today Ge'ez remains only as the main language used in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church, the Ethiopic Catholic Church, and also the Beta Israel Jewish community. However, in Ethiopia Amharic (the main lingua franca of modern Ethiopia) or other local languages, and in Eritrea and Tigray Region in Ethiopia Tigrinya may be used for sermons.

Contents

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

  • a [æ], later *e < Proto-Semitic *a
  • u [u:] < Proto-Semitic *ū
  • i [i:] < Proto-Semitic *ī
  • ā [a:], later *a < Proto-Semitic *ā
  • e [e:] < Proto-Semitic *ay
  • i [i] < Proto-Semitic *i, *u
  • o [o:] < Proto-Semitic *aw

also transliterated as ǎ, û, î, â, ê, ě, ô.

[edit] Consonants

Ge'ez consonants have a triple opposition voiceless:voiced:glottalized (emphatic). The Proto-Semitic "emphasis" in Ge'ez has been generalized to include emphatic p̣. Ge'ez is the only Semitic language to make a phonological disctinction between [p] and [f]. Ge'ez has phonologized labiovelars, descending from Proto-Semitic biphonemes. Ge'ez ś ሠ Sawt (in Amharic, also called śe-nigūś, i.e. the se letter used for spelling the word nigūś "king") is reconstructed as descended from a Proto-Semitic voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ], kept as a distinct phoneme in no other Semitic daughter language. Like Arabic, Ge'ez merged Proto-Semitic š and s in ሰ (also called se-isat: the se letter used for spelling the word isāt "fire"). Apart from this, Ge'ez phonology is remarkably conservative; the only other Proto-Semitic phonological contrasts lost may be the interdental fricatives and ghayin.

In the chart below, IPA values are shown in square brackets.

Consonants
Bilabial/
Labiodental		 Dental Lateral Palato-alveolar/
Palatal		 Velar Labialized velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal


Plosives Voiceless p t k kʷ ’ [ʔ]
Voiced b d g [ɡ] gʷ [ɡʷ]
Emphatic (i.e. ejective) p̣ [pʼ] ṭ [tʼ] ḳ [q, kʼ] ḳʷ [qʷ, kʷʼ]
Affricates Voiceless ṣ́ [ɬˁ]
Voiced
Emphatic (i.e. ejective) ṣ [ʦʼ]
Fricatives Voiceless f s ś [ɬ] š [ʃ] ḫ [χ] ḥ [ħ] h


Voiced z ‘ [ʕ]
Nasals m n
Liquids & Glides w r
l		 y [j]

[edit] Writing system

Genesis 29.11–16 in Ge'ez
Enlarge
Genesis 29.11–16 in Ge'ez
Main article: Ge'ez alphabet

Ge'ez is written with the Ge'ez abugida, a script which was originally developed specifically for this language. In languages which use it, eg Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is called Fidäl, which means script or alphabet.

The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write other languages, usually Semitic ones. The most widespread use is for Amharic in Ethiopia and Tigrinya in Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is also used for Sebatbeit, Me'en, and most other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it is used for Tigre, and it is often used for Blin, a Cushitic language. Some other languages in the Horn of Africa, such as Oromo, used to be written using Ge'ez but have switched to Latin-based orthographies.

The script has 26 basic consonant signs used to write Ge'ez:

translit. h l ḥ m ś r s ḳ b t ḫ n ʾ
Ge'ez ሀ ለ ሐ መ ሠ ረ ሰ ቀ በ ተ ኀ ነ አ
translit. k w ʿ z y d g ṭ p̣ ṣ ṣ́ f p
Ge'ez ከ ወ ዐ ዘ የ ደ ገ ጠ ጰ ጸ ፀ ፈ ፐ

It also uses 4 symbols for labialized velar consonants, which are variants of the non-labialized velar consonants:

Basic sign ḳ ḫ k g
ቀ ኀ ከ ገ
Labialized variant ḳw ḫw kw gw
ቈ ኈ ኰ ጐ

[edit] History and literature

Ge'ez literature is dominated by the Bible including the Deuterocanon. Most of its important works are also the literature of the Ethiopian Church, which include Christian liturgy (service books, prayers, hymns), Lives of Saints, and Patristic literature. This religious orientation of Ge'ez literature was a result of traditional education being the responsibility of priests and monks. "The Church thus constituted the custodian of the nation's culture", notes Richard Pankhurst, and describes the traditional education as follows:

Traditional education was largely biblical. It began with the learning of the alphabet, or more properly, syllabary.... The student's second grade comprised the memorization of the first chapter of the first Epistle General of St. John in Geez. The study of writing would probably also begin at this time, and particularly in more modern times some arithmetic might be added. In the third stage the Acts of the Apostles were studied, while certain prayers were also learnt, and writing and arithmetic continued. ... The fourth stage began with the study of the Psalms of David and was considered an important landmark in a child's education, being celebrated by the parents with a feast to which the teacher, father confessor, relatives and neighbours were invited. A boy who had reached this stage would moreover usually be able to write, and might act as a letter writer.1

However works of history and chronography, ecclesiastical and civil law, philology, medicine, and letters were also written in Ge'ez.

The Ethiopian collection in the British Library comprises some 800 manuscripts dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries, notably including magical and divinatory scrolls, and illuminated manuscripts of the 16th to 17th centuries. It was initiated by a donation of 74 codices by the Church of England Missionary Society in the 1830s and 1840s, and substantially expanded by 349 codices, taken by the British from the Tewodros II's capital at Magdala in the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia.

[edit] Origins

The Ge'ez language is classified as a South Semitic language. It evolved from an earlier proto-Ethio-Semitic ancestor used to write royal inscriptions of the kingdom of Dʿmt in Epigraphic South Arabian. As a member of South Semitic, it is closely related to Sabaean, and the Ge'ez alphabet later replaced Epigraphic South Arabian in the Kingdom of Aksum (although Epigraphic South Arabian was used for a few inscriptions into the 8th century, though not any South Arabian language since Dʿmt). Early inscriptions in Ge'ez and Ge'ez alphabet have been dated2 to as early as the 5th century BC, and in a sort of proto-Ge'ez written in ESA since the 8th century BC. Ge'ez literature properly begins with the Christianization of Ethiopia (and the civilization of Axum) in the 4th century, during the reign of Ezana of Axum.

[edit] 5th to 7th centuries

Almost all texts from this early "Aksumite" period are religious (Christian) in nature, many of them translations from Greek, Syriac, Coptic, and later also Arabic. The translation of the Christian Bible was undertaken by Syrian monks known as the Nine Saints, who had come to Ethiopia in the 5th century fleeing the Byzantine persecution of the Monophysites. The Ethiopic Bible contains 81 Books; 46 of the Old Testament and 35 of the New. A number of these Books are apocryphal (or deuterocanonical), such as the Ascension of Isaiah, Jubilees, Enoch, the Paralipomena of Baruch, Noah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Maccabees, Moses and Tobit. The Book of Enoch in particular is notable since its complete text has survived in no other language.

Also to this early period dates Qerlos, a collection of Christological writings beginning with the treatise of Saint Cyril known as Haimanot Rete’et, or De Recta Fide, the theological foundation of the Ethiopic Church. Another work is Sher'ata Paknemis, a translation of the monastic Rules of Pachomius. Non-religious works translated in this period include Physiologus, a work of natural history also very popular in Europe.3

[edit] 13th to 14th centuries

After the decline of the Aksumites, a lengthy gap follows; no works have survived that can be dated to the years of the 8th through 12th centuries. Only with the rise of the Solomonic dynasty around 1270 can we find evidence of authors committing their works to writings. Some writers consider the period beginning from the 14th century an actual "Golden Age" of Ge'ez literature -- although by this time Ge'ez was no longer a living language. While there is ample evidence that it had been replaced by the Amharic language in the south and by the Tigrigna and Tigre languages in the north, Ge'ez remained in use as the official written language until the 19th century, its status comparable to that of Medieval Latin in Europe.

Important hagiographies from this period include:

Also at this time the Apostolic Constitutions was translated in Ge'ez, which provided another set of instructions and laws for the Ethiopian Church. Another translation from this period is Zena 'Ayhud, a translation (probably from an Arabic translation) of Joseph ben Gurion's "History of the Jews" ("Sefer Yosephon") written in Hebrew in the 10th century, which covers the period from the Captivity to the capture of Jerusalem by Titus.

Apart from theological works, the earliest contemporary Royal Chronicles of Ethiopia are date to the reign of Amda Seyon I (1314-44). With the appearance of the "Victory Songs" of Amda Seyon, this period also marks the beginning of Amharic literature.

The 14th century Kəbrä Nägäst or "Glory of the Kings" by the Nebura’ed Yeshaq of Aksum is among the most significant works of Ethiopian literature, combining history, allegory and symbolism in a retelling of the story of Queen Sheba, King Solomon, and their son Menelik I of Ethiopia. Another work that began to take shape in this period is the Mashafa Aksum or "Book of Axum".4

[edit] 15th to 16th centuries

The early 15th century Fekkare Iyasus "The Explication of Jesus" contains a prophecy of a king called Tewodros, which rose to importance in 19th century Ethiopia as Tewodros II chose this throne name.

Literature flourished especially during the reign of Emperor Zara Yaqob. Written by the Emperor himself were Matshafa Berhan ("The Book of Light") and Matshafa Milad ("The Book of Nativity"). Numerous homilies were written in this period, notably Retu’a Haimanot ("True Orthodoxy") ascribed to John Chrysostom. Also of monumental importance was the appearance of the Geez translation of the Fetha Negest ("Laws of the Kings"), thought to have been around 1450, and ascribed to one Petros Abda Sayd — that was later to function as the supreme Law for Ethiopia, until it was replaced by a modern Constitution in 1930.

By the beginning of the 16th century, the Islamic invasions put an end to the flourishing of Ethiopian literature. A letter of Abba 'Enbaqom (or "Habakkuk") to Imam Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim, entitled Anqasa Amin ("Gate of the Faith"), giving his reasons for abandoning Islam, although probably first written in Arabic and later rewritten in an expanded Ge'ez version around 1532, is considered one of the classics of later Ge'ez literature.5 During this period, Ethiopian writers begin to address differences between the Ethiopian and the Roman Catholic Church in such works as the Confession of Emperor Gelawdewos, Sawana Nafs ("Refuge of the Soul"), Fekkare Malakot ("Exposition of the Godhead") and Haymanote Abaw ("Faith of the Fathers"). Around the year 1600, a number of works were translated from Arabic into Ge'ez for the first time, including the Chronicle of John of Nikiu and the Universal History of Jirjis ibn al'Amid Abi'l-Wasir (also known as al-Makin).

[edit] Sample

The first sentence of the Book of Enoch:

ቃለ፡ በረከት፡ ዘሄኖክ፡ ዘከመ፡ ባረከ፡ ኅሩያነ፡ ወጻድቃነ፡ እለ፡ ሀለው፡ ይኩኑ፡
በዕለተ፡ ምንዳቤ፡ ለአሰስሎ፡ ኲሉ፡ እኩያን፡ ወረሲዓን።
Ḳāla barakat za-Hēnk zakama barraka ḫirūyāna waṣādiḳāna ʾila halaw yikūnū
baʿilata mindābē laʾasaslō kʷīlū ʾikūyān warasīʿān
"Word of blessing of Henok, wherewith he blessed the chosen and righteous who would be alive in the day of tribulation for the removal of all wrongdoers and backsliders."

[edit] Notes

  1. Richard P.K. Pankhurst, An Economic History of Ethiopia, 1800-1935 (Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie I University Press, 1968), pp. 666f.
  2. Matara Aksumite & Pre-Aksumite City Webpage
  3. E. A. Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), pp. 566f.
  4. Budge, p. 574.
  5. Addis Tribune: A Glimpse into 16th Century Ethiopian History

[edit] Further references

  • David Diringer. The Alphabet, A Key To The History of Mankind. 1968.
  • Yuri M. Kobishchanov. Axum (Joseph W. Michels, editor; Lorraine T. Kapitanoff, translator). University Park, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1979. ISBN 0-271-00531-9
  • Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. ISBN 0-7486-0106-6

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Grammar

  • Aläqa Tayyä, Maṣḥafa sawāsəw. Monkullo: Swedish Mission 1896/7 (= E.C. 1889).
  • Chaîne, Marius, Grammaire éthiopienne, Nouvelle édition, Beyrouth: Imprimerie catholique 1938.
  • Cohen, Marcel, "la prononciation traditionelle du Guèze (éthiopien classique)", in: Journal asiatique (1921) Sér. 11 / T. 18 (electronic version in Gallica digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France PDF).
  • Dillmann, August; Bezold, Carl, Ethiopic Grammar, 2nd edition translated from German by James Crichton, London 1907. ISBN 1-59244-145-9 (2003 reprint). (Published in German: ¹1857, ²1899).
  • Gäbrä-Yohannəs Gäbrä-Maryam, Gəss - Mäzgäbä-ḳalat - Gə'əz-ənna Amarəñña; yä-Gə'əz ḳʷanḳʷa mämmariya (A Grammar of Classical Ethiopic). Addis Ababa 2001/2002 (= E.C. 1994)[1]
  • Gene Gragg "Ge`ez Phonology," in: Phonologies of Asia and Africa (Vol 1), ed. A. S. Kaye & P. T. Daniels, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana (1997).
  • Kidanä Wäld Kəfle, Maṣḥafa sawāsəw wagəss wamazgaba ḳālāt ḥaddis ("A new grammar and dictionary"), Dire Dawa: Artistik Matämiya Bet 1955/6 (E.C. 1948).
  • Lambdin, Thomas O., Introduction to Classical Ethiopic, Harvard Semitic Studies 24, Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press 1978. ISBN 0-89130-263-8.
  • Praetorius, Franz, Äthiopische Grammatik, Karlsruhe: Reuther 1886.
  • Stefan Weninger, Ge‘ez grammar, Munich, ISBN 3-929075-04-0 (1st edition), ISBN 3-89586-604-0 (2nd revised edition).
  • Tropper, Josef, Altäthiopisch: Grammatik der Ge'ez mit Übungstexten und Glossar, Elementa Linguarum Orientis (ELO) 2, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag 2002. ISBN 3-934628-29-X

[edit] Literature

  • Taddesse Adera, Ali Jimale Ahmed (eds.), Silence Is Not Golden: A Critical Anthology of Ethiopian Literature, Red Sea Press (1995), ISBN 0-932415-47-4.
  • Jon Bonk, Annotated and Classified Bibliography of English Literature Pertaining to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Atla Bibliography Series, Scarecrow Pr (1984), ISBN 0-8108-1710-1.
  • Dillmann, August, Chrestomathia Aethiopica. Leipzig 1866.

[edit] Dictionaries

  • Dillmann, August, Lexicon linguæ Æthiopicæ cum indice Latino, Lipsiae 1865.
  • Leslau, Wolf, Comparative Dictionary of Geez (Classical Ethiopic): Geez-English, English-Geez, with an Index of the Semitic Roots, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1987. ISBN 3-447-02592-1.
  • Leslau, Wolf, Concise Dictionary of Ge‘ez (Classical Ethiopic), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1989. ISBN 3-447-02873-4.
  • Ludolf, Hiob, Lexicon Aethiopico-Latinum, Ed. by J. M. Wansleben, London 1661.
  • Wemmers, J., Lexicon Aethiopicum, Rome 1638.

[edit] External links

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