Talk:Ge'ez language

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Contents 1 work done 2 historical ge'ez speakers? 3 the alphabet 4 What's wrong with the changes I've made? 5 Oops 6 Ge'ez/Amharic 7 Sabaeans 8 Lateral consonants 9 "history of the jews" by ben gurion 10 Image of film cover 11 THere needs to be a link 12 writing direction? 13 science 14 Comprehensibility?

[edit] work done

I merged in Gi'iz and did a very little research. Corrections are welcome.

Also, I kept the phrase 'main lingua franca' even though it sounds wrong to me - can there be more than one lingua franca in a region? Key45 03:00, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] historical ge'ez speakers?

was ge'ez ever used as a primary language by any specific ethnic group? ("the peasantry" is kind of vague) Gringo300 06:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the alphabet

maybe Ge'ez alphabet should be a separate article? We badly need a phoneme table, the Unicode allocations are less than useful if you want to read the script... dab (ᛏ) 12:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's wrong with the changes I've made?

Someone named User:Yom has reverted all of my changes. I hope these changes can be discussed here rather than starting an editing war. yhever 21:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oops

I didn't mean to revert your changes. I was just adding a link for an edit I made earlier. I must have been editing an older version and saved over your changes. I'll revert it and edit back in my change into the new version.

Yom

I'm sorry for responding harshly earlier, I didn't understand it was a mistake.

I was trying to make the transcription more accurate. The most important thing to fix was ሰ and ሠ which are s and ś, respectively, and not the other way round.

As for ፀ, I think it is more accurate to transcribe it as ṣ́, though ḍ has been used by Wolf Leslau in his dictionaries on account of the correspondance with Arabic ض (ḍ). In modern pronunciation, "ፀ" is pronounced the same as ጸ (i.e. ṣ), but it is unlikely that this sound was a voiced ejective (I believe it is not even possible phonetically to pronounce such a sound) - and all emphatic consonants are ejectives in the traditional pronunciation of Ge'ez, and in the other related modern languages. yhever 19:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ge'ez/Amharic

I am aware that Ge'ez and Amharic are very different languages. Perhaps the difference should be mentioned somewhere in the article. Since I am primarily and Arabist, working toward being a Semitist, I am incapable of adding the information. User:Yom likely has the expertise to do so.

IbnBatriq 19:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sabaeans

The article states that Ge'ez replaced the Sabaean language, although all the evidence we have indicates a concurrence of the two languages, rather than an evolution. I'm aware of some experts arguing for rather a common origin (as opposed to an evolution), and I think the dispute should be included in the form of "The origins of the Ge'ez language and script are still controversial." (as removed by Llywrch) and some sort of qualifier (as in, "it is thought to be the descendent...."). I acknowledge my bias and the possibility of POV, however, so I will not do any such edit unilaterally.

Dr. Pankhurst (the foremost or one of the foremost Ethiopian historians) and some others agree with my view.

Yom 05:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Geez and Amharic are two different languages. But they use the same alphabet. I think geez is the former language. It is the orgin of Amharic. They have words in common and the remaining are related. If one can speak only Geez, defintely he could understand Amharic. They are generally very similar but different languages.

There are no Geez only speakers. The language used in Ethiopian Orthodox Church, however, is Geez.

Angeboy.

the question raised here is: were there EVER any geez only speakers? i've read things implying there were. Gringo300 10:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

There were, prior to the early middle Ages, when Amharic, Tigrinya, and Tigre began to separate into independent languages (Tigrinya and Tigre directly from Ge'ez, while Amharic from a dialect or cluster of dialects). Moreover, I've cleared up the disambiguity about the alphabet and language. The alphabet is for sure descended from Epigraphic South Arabian (interestingly, the earliest inscriptions are in Eritrea in the 9th c. BC, so far, though), and Ge'ez is definitely not descended from the Sabaean language (the inscriptions of the D`mt state, for instance, where recorded in proto-Ge'ez); see See Weninger, Stefan "Ge'ez" in von Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha, Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005, p.732:

"Ge'ez is not, as was stated by earlier researchers, an offshoot of Old South Arabian (Appleyard 1996)."

Today, however, there are no Ge'ez speakers as a first language. It holds a position similar to Latin did in the (later) Middle Ages (it's still holds a lot of importance, though not as much as it used to). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 20:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Most Amharic scholars of their own language (Amsalu Aklilu etc.) state that Amharic DID come directly from Ge'ez. Indeed, the substantial Ge'ez vocabulary in Amharic shows less change than the other modern languages, usually no change at all. (Many simple everyday vocabulary items in Amharic are identical to Ge'ez). However, know it all European scholars who couldn't even say one sentence in AMharic always have to re-write everything Ethiopian books state and turn it upside down. Stating that Amharic came directly from Ge'ez is just too obvious, therefore they proclaim that this notion has to be changed, and they come up with the dry armchair theory that it DIDn't come from Ge'ez, but from some hypothetical, imaginary, and completely unattested dialect. They fail to appreciate that these are literate people, and have been for millennia, and therefore there are no unattested dialects they can invent that Amharic could have come from. But the Truth hurts these kind of people. What I don't get is how you swallow all their hypothetical book-theories hook line and sinker, before you would trust anything an Ethiopian wrote about their own tradition. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lateral consonants

Wouldn't it be better if ś - l - ṣ́ would be placed on the same column under "Lateral"?

Also, I think that classifying ṣ and ṣ́ as affricates is wrong. ṣ can find its place under s and z as "emphatic" or "ejective", and ṣ́ can be placed on the same row under "Lateral". Thus, the whole row of affricates can be removed.

One more thing, why is š in the table? The only palatals in Ge‘ez are y and the vowels i and e. yhever 15:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "history of the jews" by ben gurion

-was written in Hebrew in the 10th cent. (according to the highly authoritative prof David Flusser who published an annotated version a few decades ago), so its Ge'ez translation (probably a translation of the Arabic translation of the book) could not have been produced in the 5th-7th century, of course; the mistake originates from Wallis Budge p.566. I deleted it there and moved it to the next period (12-15th cent).

A single professor may be "authoritative" to you, but the Ethiopian Church, which actually includes this in its "broad canon", is even more "authoritative" to others. I'm sure not everyone agrees with this dating. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image of film cover

Just wanted to add this to the discussion, as i had previously promised to show the usage of Ge'ez in an African American film. The Ge'ez title actually appears at the end of the film, and it is also in the DVD cover. But what does it mean in Amharic?--Halaqah 22:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It's actually Amharic, and says "500 years later" or "after 500 years"... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Correct. be-hWala, for instance, is a pure Amharic term, derived from the Ge'ez ከወላ/ከዋላ kawalā/kawālā "behind" (prefixed "be-" meaning "by, in" or showing that it's related to time). `Ametat (ዓመታት) has the -at plural more common in Ge'ez in Tigrinya, but is still standard Amharic. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 23:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] THere needs to be a link

You might understand the difference but it can be very confusing the language and the script, if it is at the top, as with most articles where confusion can occur it is just much better, i dont wanna read an article to realize it is the wrong thing---Halaqah 19:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] writing direction?

is this written right to left (like arabic) or left to right (like english) thanks in advance Scott Free 20:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Like English --Halaqah 23:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Left to right, it's predecessor script, ESA (actually first inscriptions in Ethiopia and Eritrea, though) was written in boustrophedon (right to left, then left to right, then right to left again, switching each line). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 23:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] science

what is geez? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 189.153.111.227 (talk) 03:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Comprehensibility?

Is the Ge'ez language of the liturgy comprehensible to a modern Amharic or Tigrinya speaker who has not specifically learned Ge'ez? -- 85.179.175.225 00:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't be comprehensible spoken as it was originally (to an Amharic speaker, especially), but but any Amharic or Tigrinya speaker would be able to half-understand it reading a passage in Ge'ez or listening to modern liturgy read Ge'ez, who read it with an Amharic accent (i.e. do not pronounce the pharyngeals). Probably even more if they knew the historical origins of certain sounds in Amharic and Tigrinya (e.g. sometimes an original Ts -> T' -> CH' in Amharic, cf. Ge'ez Tsewa and Amh. Ch'ewa. If you knew the historical connection, you could understand it, otherwise it wouldn't make sense). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 01:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)