Talk:Amharic

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Contents

[edit] General Thanks

To everyone who has helped put together this Wiki article. I've been trying to suss out some Amharic grammer rules for years. This discussion is helping me a LOT.

[edit] Unicode

Don't those Abugida symbols have Unicode equivalents? I don not think we can ask every Wikipedia user to install the extra font to be able to read the fidels. On a sidenote, I have been adding the Noun and Adjective sections today (more is to come), using Latin transcription. — mark ✎ 17:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The table does use the Unicode encoding. Perhaps I can additionally generate a graphics version. --Pjacobi 19:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It does indeed use the Unicode encoding, I asked the wrong question. What I mean is that people still have to download the GF Zemen font to be able to view the fidels, which I think is bad. If these symbols are not included in Arial Unicode or Lucida Unicode, the fonts most people have, then it would probably be a good idea to generate a graphics version. — mark ✎ 22:43, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Not sure I'm interpreting the discussion correctly, but I do hope that the Unicode fidel table will remain in place, even if an alternative image-based version is added. I think it's a disservice to the language to propagate non-textual representations exclusively.

--babbage 05:01, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I concur. I should be an addition; the present table is very nice if you actually have installed the font. — mark ✎ 11:52, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It is more than likely a more common font can be added in the table (style="font-family:XXX") to show them.
On a totally unrelated subject, can someboduy cross-check the sounds section with other sources? omniglot and Patterns of SOunds both list quite different phonemes than the article... --Circeus 22:40, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
I fixed the IPA symbols in the palatal series. These now agree with other sources (and with what I used on the Tigrinya page). By the way, there are many mistakes in the Omniglot Amharic text transcriptions. -- MikeGasser (talk) 22:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethiotrans - moved out for discussion

Recently, a whole paragraph on a supposedly significant translation company was added to the article:

Ethiotrans is the first Ethiopian company who is offering the localization and translation services in various African/Ethiopian languages. You can see the list of languages what Ethiotrans is offering by going its web site ethiotrans.com . Also Ethiotrans is the first company to sale an Amharic keyboard which allows the user to learn the Amharic letter while learning how to write. You can see the Amharic keyboard at this location ethiotrans.com/ethiopickeyboard/order.htm

To me, it sounds too much like advertising paired with an attempt to Googlebomb ethiotrans.com (see also Ethiotrans). What do others think? — mark ✎ 10:49, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Golbez 01:23, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
Very good! — mark ✎ 08:27, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] መረጃ

Great news for all wikipedians who speak Amharic -- the Amharic wiki is now ready for development with a brand new Amharic language interface! If you haven't visited in a while, come check it!

Regards, Codex Sinaiticus 23:07, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Update - Amharic wiki had the fastest article growth rate of all 217 wikipedias for the month of August, jumping from 5 articles on Aug 1, to 35 on Sep 1. (See multilingual statistics).

September kind of slowed down considerably, looks like our count for Oct 1 is going to be 45.

If you write Amharic, come and contribute some articles, and if you know anyone else who does, get them to spread the word! Codex Sinaiticus 23:26, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

    • Update - Good news for all Amharic speakers! Someone has finally found the programs that solved the problem of how to type and edit ፊደል directly into the wiki edit box, instead of having to cut-and-paste it from another program like we've been doing! See the am:Help:Contents page for details (I am using Anykey with Firefox method)... This should speed things up considerably! We are cuurently at 284 encyclopedia articles... Spread the word! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Traditional order

I don't understand why the fidäl chart is brought not under the traditional order. The grouping of similar consonant is already made (though, not ideally, IMO) in the consonants chart. Yhever 18:19, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Why doesn't anybody respond? I think that writing "not in tradition order" above the chart is still no explanation to the reasons of doing so. There is no point in grouping the letters "by manner of articulation", if that has already been done in the phonemic chart.
Should I change it myself? Yhever 23:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree that traditional (ha-pe) order would be infinitely more appropriate. I have been meaning to get around to changing it too, but haven't yet, so I just put "not in traditional order" for the time being! Codex Sinaiticus 23:26, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I am glad to hear. I'll get to it shortly. Yhever 22:43, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Transcription

Well, I did as I promised and changed the chart to be "in traditional order".

Next thing I think should be changed is the transcription to be phonemic and according to common usage among éthiopisants; that is: č instead of c, ǧ instead of ɟ, y instead of j, š instead of ʃ, ž instead of ʒ and ň instead of ɲ. Nevertheless, the usage of an apostrophe instead of a subscript dot may be more convenient typographically. I think that ts' is neither clear for marking a single phoneme nor correct phonetically. This can be replaced by ṣ or s' . I am aware that the symbols I have suggested are not according to IPA, but they are more convenient and standard (as in the transcriptions of both Wolf Leslau and Thomas L. Kane's dictionaries; they also use q for k').

Please note that a similar decision was made in the transcription of vowels. The upper table shows the phonemic symbols whereas the lower table shows the symbols of several allophones. Yhever 13:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I suggest dropping (x) from the transcription for letter ኸ because in modern Amharic it is pronounced identical to, and indeed in spelling is interchangeable with, the sounds represented by ሀ, ሐ, and ኀ. These four letters may have been distinguished once in the distant past, cf. Arabic and Hebrew; but in modern Amharic, all four have quite the same consonantal sound, and may all be interchanged in spelling.
On another note, I have trouble seeing some "phonetic" letters on my computer, they look like little squares; this includes these letters in the above paragraph (copying and pasting, they all look like squares to me): ǧ ɟ ʃ ʒ ɲ ṣ ... I have this pronblem with a lot of articles that use phonetic transcriptions... Whereas these ones show up just fine: č š ž ň Anyone know a remedy? Cheers, Codex Sinaiticus 13:21, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Is this better? : ǧ ɟ ʃ ʒ ɲ ṣ . You're probably using Internet Explorer, which is not completely Unicode compliant. Alternatively, you lack a proper Unicode font like Arial Unicode MS. The solution is often to use the {{IPA}} template for phonetic transcriptions that make use of IPA (hit edit to see what I did to the sequence you gave). The ones that show up just fine are encoded in a lower, more common Unicode range and hence are displayed without problems on most systems. — mark ✎ 13:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I am using IE... They all show up now, except for the last one, that one now looks like a slightly smaller square... But now I know what to do to fix the problem on articles with IPA I can't read! Thank you thank you! Codex Sinaiticus 14:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Back to Codex Siniaticus' point about 'x', you're right about the fact that the 'h' letters are interchangeable with ኸ (as for the pronunciation, I'm not sure). On the other hand, I think that there is a phonemic difference between x and h.
h is not compatible with the first order vowel (ä) which is pronounced the same as the fourth order vowel (a) after it (e.g. halafi "responsible" and not hälafi). This 'h' is sometimes in variation with nothing, as in: həlm/əlm "dream", hamsa/amsa "fifty", etc.
'x', on the contrary, is compatible with the first order vowel: e.g. ayyäxäw (which might be pronounced [ayyähäw]) "you saw him", and is related to the phoneme k as in: honä "he was, became" vs. akkwahwan "manner of being, condition". The syllable xä/hä can only be written with ኸ, since the first order of the other 'h' letters has the vowel a. Yhever 17:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
You're right in that when the following vowel is ä, only ኸ can be used, as in አየኸው "you saw him", because the first form in all the other h's happens to share the vowel of the fourth form. But I would disagree that this indicates any different consonant "x" as opposed to "h". If you take off the "him" part, you have "'ayyeh" (Did you see?) which is normally written አየህ, but could conceivably even appear as አየሕ or አየኅ alongside አየኽ, and still be correct. No matter what letter is used, the "h" can always be pronounced more roughly aspirated, or not - I presume that's what the "x" is supposed to indicate. But the only thing different about ኸ is the fact that it is the only H letter that can be used to write with the -ä vowel. The consonantal value is identical to ሀ, ሐ, and ኀ, all of which can range anywhere from normal h, to a more aspirate x. If anything, it is ሐ that tends to be read more aspirate than the others, not ኸ, but it's really a matter of personal affectation how much to aspirate or not aspirate the h sound, and has little to do with which letter is used in spelling. And you're right, often enough initial h- can coexist alongside another spelling with initial ' , as in hagär / 'agär. With regards, Codex Sinaiticus 22:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, I didn't intend to make such a big deal out of it, though it is probably my fault. You're absolutely right about orthographical conventions in Amharic, but I was referring not to the way things are written (or pronounced, for that matter), but to the phonological analysis of the phonemes represented by the four different 'h' letters. The 2nd person suffix of the verb is made of such a phoneme that when followed by the vowel 'ä' appears as ኸ, whereas the first syllable of the word halafi which is in the same pattern as säbari apears as ሃ/ሀ/ሐ/ሓ/ኀ/ኃ (and probably not with ኻ) i.e. 'ha'. My point was that the different behaviour of these 'h'-s (out of which only the second varies with nothing as in: ሀገር/አገር ሀምሳ/አምሳ, etc.) points to two different elements; The first I mark with 'x' (as it is historically related to 'k', and also interchanges with 'k' in the current language, as in the example I gave of: hedä : askedä; käbbädä : yä-häbbädä in some dialects, etc.) and the second one I mark with 'h'. Only the first one has to be written with ኸ when followed by the vowel 'ä'.
Nevertheless, it may be convenient to leave out this whole issue from the presentation of the letters... Yhever 00:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, you certainly can write halafi as ኻላፊ alongside the other six variants, because it is precisely the same sound. The only way ኸ is "historically related" to k, is in the fact that it is indeed really just the letter for k (ከ) with a bar added to the top. Aside from that, as you seem to agree that it makes no difference in either pronunciation or spelling fronm the other h's, I don't think it's particularly enlightening to present that letter as representing "x" (which most people apart from linguists would misunderstand anyway) on the basis of "phonology" (whatever that is - I mean if it's not relevant to spelling or pronunciation, what exactly is it anyway?) I know we are belabouring a very petty point here, but I look forward to the day when the learning of Amharic will not purposefully be made to appear so much more intimidating than it really is, with just this kind of thing... With regards, Codex Sinaiticus 01:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
You are persistently avoiding the evidence. I never said that halafi cannot be written with ኻ, I only mentioned that it is not the normal way of writing it (which is what I meant by: "probably not"). If you wish you can look at the examples I gave you and see that there are two kinds of 'h'-s even though they are pronounced the same and written mostly the same. The difference comes from the behaviour of surrounding vowels, and the interchangeability with nothing for one 'h' and with 'k' for the other one.
I agree that this whole issue may be too complicated, and not in place in the chart of letters, so let's delete this 'x'.
And back to my original question: The transcription right now is not consistent throughout the article. Now, what do you think about my suggestion to change it to be the same as in Wolf Leslau's dictionary and in Thomas L. Kane's dictionary? Yhever 17:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I just added the correspondences between IPA and the transcription conventions. I think the IPA symbols should remain in the phoneme charts, whatever system of transcription is used elsewhere in the article. By the way, the transcription is still not consistent (there are two different palatal nasal consonants used, for example). Personally, I'd be in favor of switching completely from Leslau's system (adopted unfortunately by Kane), with its cumbersome use of non-standard characters for the two most common vowels (not to mention confusing use of schwa) to one more like the standard adopted by the mapping authorities in Ethiopia. And not all éthiopisants use this system either. Just my preference. But I'm new here... Mike 03:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with how things are handled by the mapping authorities in Ethiopia, so could you elaborate? Among linguists, Leslau's system is the most common and that is why it is used here at present. But I think it's a good idea to give other systems some consideration. — mark ✎ 10:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
It's true that Leslau's system is the most common among linguists (as much as I dislike it, I used it myself once in a paper, bowing to convention), but it's not familiar at all to native-speaking non-linguists, and the question is what will be the most useful for Wikipedia users, many of whom will not be linguists (let alone Ethiopianists). I'm not sure when this actually happened, but at some point the mapping authorities in Ethiopia adopted a system by which the vowels (in traditional order) were represented by /e/, /u/, /ī/, /a/, /ē/, /i/, /o/. This has the advantage that diacritics are not needed for the most common vowels. In any case, I think the important thing is to agree on a single convention for this page which can be used for other Ethio-Semitic languages. I'd like to start working on the Tigrinya page, for example (it's just a stub now). Oh, by the way, the IPA symbols for the "palatal plosives" are not right. Like the corresponding English consonants, these are really post-alveolar or alveo-palatal affricates, and the symbols should be /ʧ/, /ʤ/, and something like /ʧˈ/ for the ejective. Note that I'm not arguing these symbols (or the other IPA symbols) be used throughout the article, just fixed in the table. Mike Gasser 15:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I just came across Mustafaa's excellent page for Soddo, which also uses Leslau's system. (Soddo phonetics/phonology is very close to Amharic.) So I give up. I'll use this for the Tigrinya page as well. But should we use ň or ñ (as currently in amarəñña at the top of the page) for the palatal n? Even though it's not strictly part of Leslau's system, the latter has the advantage that it's more likely to be familiar to people from Spanish. — Mike Gasser 19:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it should be changed to ñ throughout since it's the exact same sound and a much more familiar sign, instead of the funny looking sign that looks like a n with a long tail on the left end, that if I didn't know better, might assume was -ng- ... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There are still several mistakes and inconsistencies left in the transcription of words. Just to name a few: əgr-äɲɲa (əgr-äñña; I assume this one is agreed), ŝəmagəlle (šəmagəlle), ŝärär-it (šärär-it), c'əkkan-e (č'əkkan-e), etc. I also think that it is better to write geminated consonants doubled and not with ":" as in: bärr-äɲ:a (bärr-äñña) -- anyhow, the system should be consistent. Is it ok for me to correct these errors? yhever 22:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with all those changes. By the way, sorry to mess with your post, but I had to see what symbols were being used, as they won't show up on this browser otherwise... Cheers, ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I have made these changes. I'm sorry for messing up this talk page... I mistakenly saved the changes I've made to the main article in the talk page, but I've reverted the changes. Anyhow, I'm glad that's over -- now I can move on to some aspects of the grammatical description that I hope to improve. yhever 03:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone named Dbachmann has changed the transcription of ሐ from h to ḥ, and the transcription of ኀ from h to ḫ. We have had earlier an argument over h and x, but I assume that everyone here agrees that ሀ, ሐ and ኀ are pronounced the same in Amharic. It may be added that historically these letters had different values in Ge'ez, and add a pointer to Ge'ez alphabet. Is it OK for me to revert these changes? yhever 15:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Please revert. Thanks. -- MikeGasser (talk) 17:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dictionary

Is there a good academic Amharic-English dictionary? On amazon.con i only find one paperback dictionary and it is out-of-print ... Isn't there some serious dictionary, like "Oxford's Amharic" or something like that?--Amir E. Aharoni 22:13, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The most extensive one, coming in at a good 2300 pages in two volumes, is Thomas L. Kane's (1990) Amharic-English Dictionary. A lot of it, however, consists of a compilation of various older dictionaries (including Guidi's 1901 Amarico-Italiano, a French one, and Armbruster's 1908 E-A and A-E vocabularies). It may be the most complete, but it includes many archaisms and neologisms. The best one, to me at least, is still Wolf Leslau's (1976) Concise Amharic Dictionary. Both A-E and E-A in 538 pages, in the same transcription as his Reference Grammar. The lemmas are concise, but reliable. As for the pocket version, you may have been looking at Amsalu & Mosback (1973), only English-Amharic. The back cover says that they have been teaching Amharic for about twenty years, yet they didn't consider it necessary to include sample sentences, which makes it virtually unusable unless you already know Amharic in which case you wouldn't need it anyway. Hope this helps! — mark ✎ 13:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Amsalu also did a Amharic-English companion volume, but it may be harder to find... my copy is so weathered, I can't even tell you the date, but I can tell you that Dr. Amsalu is still perhaps the world's foremost authority! Codex Sinaiticus 15:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I probably got carried away; that particular dictionary just isn't very helpful but I didn't mean that as a comment on Amsalu's expertise. Though Leslau, I think, also qualifies for the title of foremost authority. — mark ✎ 20:19, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Amharic Input

Is it possible to input Amharic using the keyboard on Windows XP or Linux? I'm starting to study Amharic in the university soon. I'm already able to read it on-screen using GF Zemen, but it would be nice to have the option to print out my homework.--Amir E. Aharoni 08:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

For Windows you can use Tavultesoft's keyman (the Ethiopic keyboard layouts are in: [1]). In Linux, you can use SCIM. They are both based on an input method in which you press the consonant and then the vowel and get the corresponding Ethiopic letter. Yhever 18:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Font?

Does anyone know where I can download a font that will let me see the Amharic characters in the article?

Theshibboleth 07:19, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

i got this file and put into the font folder. windows XP said "installing...". internet explorer 7 still doesn't show the letters on the article (ecoding unicode-utf8) what am i doing wrong? (that is except of not using capital letters) --itaj 01:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I have the identical issue. I am trying to learn Amharic and would fine these articles much more useful if I could see the font correctly. One thing I noticed is that when I open the gfzemenu.ttf file, I get a bunch of rows of "The quick brown fox..." in english letters. I see no Ge'ez text. -- Roger S. 19:39, 31, January 2007 (CST)
You're not supposed to open the file. You're supposed to put it in your fonts folder. I.e., if you use windows, in C:\Windows\Fonts\. Putting it there will instantly install it, and you should be able to see the font on your web browser. It may require a restart of the browser, however. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 02:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
i did that, at the time, it didn't work. i got some answers here talk:ge'ez alphabet#font nonsense, but none helped either. finally, in internet options (windows XP control panel), there's a "fonts" button, had to change the etheiopic font to "gf zemen" (choosing ethiopic in the language, then gf zemen font). this should be explained somewhere for miserable users not to go through what i have. --itaj 02:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
[2] has a nice UTF-8 codeset which shows Amharic nicely (TTF). Just download and install (windows: ctrl-panel/fonts) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.98.240.212 (talk) 22:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] amharic

[edit] "ch" is not a plosive

It may be misleading to put [ʧ](č) in the plosive row. It's not a plosive, it's an affricate. --Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 23:11, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

There are two types of "ch"s in Amharic, a non-plosive ቸ, and a plosive (explosive) version, ጨ. I'm not sure if that's the correct terminology to refer to the second word, but it's definitely similar to the other plosives. Yom 23:34, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I see it from the table that there are two ʧ-s, one normal and one ejective, but the IPA-symbols suggest that only the airstream mechanism is different, and they are both affricates. The voiceless palatal plosive has a different IPA-symbol ([c]). Sound sample (voiceless palatal plosive)
Of course it's possible that someone had mixed up the IPA-symbols. I can't speak Amharic so I can't tell you whether they are correct (or not). --Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 00:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Both are affricates. There is no palatal plosive [c] in the language. I'll fix it in the table (I forgot to move the non-ejective symbols out of plosive when I edited this awhile back). -- MikeG (talk) 02:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikijunior Wikibook

Hi, Wikibooks:Wikijunior_Languages is the current collaboration. In order to round it out and reduce systemic bias, it would be nice to cover at least one common African language. Can someone go there and add Amharic? It would take probably 10 minutes, as it is meant as an overview for children. Sound samples would be icing on the cake. Thanks a lot. - Taxman Talk 01:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fidel and Abugida

The second paragraph says the writing system is _called_ fidel or abugida. It's called Amharic, Ethiopic, or Ge'ez. It's an example of an abugida. I hadn't heard "fidel" before. (I don't feel qualified to make this change myself, in terms of keeping the article in Wikipedia format, because "fidel" shows up later in the article too.)

Isn't A-Bu-Gi-Da... just a system to sort the characters? The other one would be Ha-Le-Ha... The writing system is called "fidel" in Amharic. I don't know if this is true for the other languages using it. --Tiqur Anbessa 22:09, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
This is a typical problem caused by modern linguists stealing an Ethiopian word meaning "ABC" (Abugida). and applying it to a whole class of writing systems including Brahmic, then they seem to forget where they stole the word from, and question whether Ge'ez (the original to be called "Abugida") has any real right to be called this, according to their new definition, which has by now become confused. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 12:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for this piece of information! I've found this out just rather recently... --Tiqur Anbessa 16:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History?

Does anyone know the history of the Amharic language--specifically, when it replaced Ge'ez as the primary language in Ethiopia? nmw 22:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow i just came here to add this same question. Amharic was a royal language which replace Ge'ez. The language filtered and became the lingua franca of the people. but because i only know this from oral sources i cant add it. I cant recal when this happened I mean the fading of Ge'ez. Ask Yom he knows many things.--Halaqah 03:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

That is exactly what I have heard consistently from oral sources too. I know I have also seen it in written sources; I believe it may be documented in Wax and Gold by Donald Levine, if you can find it. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 12:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Ge'ez was the official language basically until the 19th century. The language of the court was basically Amharic for most of the Solomonic dynasty, but it was always Ge'ez that was written. In the 18th century the court language became Oromo with Iyoas I, and remained Oromo during the hegemony of the Yejju (1779-1855; not sure if it was Tigrinya during Mikael Sehul's regency of the 18th c.). Ge'ez probably ceased to be spoken in the 6th-9th century, though. Amharic is putatively a descendent of Ge'ez, but more likely split around the 4th century from Ge'ez by way of a sister language or some dialect(s) of Ge'ez. Of course, the date at which you define the language as Amharic and no longer Ge'ez is also arbitrary, so the dates can vary. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 17:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
You just contradicted yourself. It is correct that the slide from Ge'ez into Amharic is imperceptible and gradual, and very well documented much like Anglo-Saxon into English. The "sister language" thing is a theory of some modern day revisionists for which there is no shred of documentation or evidence, and I'm rather surprised to see you giving it any mention. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Where's the contradiction? The change from one language to another is almost always gradual (excepting pidginization/creolization), but the usual date for considering the dialect/cluster of dialects being a separate language from Ge'ez is generally in Late antiquity or the early medieval period. This time period is not at all well-documented, actually. We have very few inscriptions and texts, limited to those of Kaleb of the 6th c., Hatsani Dani'el of the 7-9th century (probably 9th c. but uncertain), and a few biblical texts from Abba Gerima (Garima) dating to the early medieval or late Aksumite period (with a mention in the colophons of Armaho - probably Armah) and a few small short inscriptions. All of these texts are unequivocally Ge'ez and do not show the evolution into Amharic that you claim. In fact, we don't find any clearly Amharic words until the 14th century, with the Soldiers' Songs of Amda Seyon I, which are in fully developed Old Amharic. We don't, however, have any evidence of the evolution of Amharic between it and earlier Ge'ez texts. Old Amharic words and names continue to appear throughout the years, especially in soldiers' songses (fully in Old Amharic), colophons, and magic scrolls. If it is this gradual increased usage of Amharic that you are referring to when you say that the "slide from Ge'ez into Amharic is [...] very well documented," then you are mistaken, as the Soldiers' Songs of Amda Seyon are clearly those of a full-developed (Old) Amharic language. As for the sister language theory vs. dialects, vs. multiple dialects, what is called a language is arbitrary. I was simply noting it as a possibility since linguists have considered it. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 01:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
If you can get a chance, please look at the info in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica article "Semitic languages", it describes a gradual transition of texts in the yearly chronicles and other government and court records over the centuries, being written in a mixture of Geez and increasingly Amharic words. From what I have seen of the language of the Fetha Negest, this indeed seems to be accurate. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm aware of the increased usage of Amharic words over the years in Ge'ez chronicles, but it's not the evolution of Ge'ez into Amharic right before our eyes. I'd guess it was a result of an increasingly smaller population that fully spoke and understood Ge'ez, but whatever the reason, Old Amharic was a fully developed language separate from Ge'ez by the 14th century and almost certainly earlier. The Amharic used in the 4 Solders' Songs from Amda Seyon's time were not mixes of Amharic and Ge'ez but pure Old Amharic. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 02:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
The reason why you find so many Amharic words in Ge'ez texts of the Middle Ages is the fact that a) Ge'ez wasn't any more a spoken language at that time but the language of scholarship (it had a role may be comparable to that of Latin in Europe); b) the authors of those texts were in most cases Amharic mother tounge speakers and especially in the chronicles they had to use Amharic words for items, offices etc. which originate in the language of the court, which was Amharic (lesane negus) (cf. Manfred Kropp.1986. Arabisch-äthiopische Übersetzungstechniken am Beispiel der Zena Ayhud (Yosippom) und des Terikä Wäldä-‘Amid. In: ZDMG 136. 314-346.). Driss 09:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I heard first hand from Entoto Musuem that Amharic was a royal language only used by the court, as a political leverage to seperate royal from everyday people. Is there any validity to this?--HalaTruth(ሀላካሕ) 19:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Writing

Is Amharic written left to right like most languages? Or right to left like Arabic and Hebrew? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.59.5.104 (talk) 00:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Left to right. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 00:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Race

What color skin is the people who speak this language? I'm guessing they're black since it's Ethiopia but how black are they? And is there any chance Ethiopians are genetically related to Arabs and Jews?

probably quite dark skin. Their race is caucasian however. And yes there is a very high chance of that. --86.142.171.45 (talk) 13:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Number of speakers

I wonder where the number of 27 million mother tongue speakers do come from? Both Ethnologue and the data of the census don’t give that number. Driss 20:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's from the approximately 24-5 million speakers in Ethiopia (~32% of the population from 1994 census) plus the 2 million speakers in the diaspora (I found this in another article and can't speak as to its veracity). We should be getting new numbers in the next couple months as a new census has just gotten underway. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 21:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help with translation

I'm currently working on a system intended to create short articles on political parties on a variety of wikipedias simultaneously. However, in order for the technique to work I need help with translations to various languages. If you know Amharic, please help me by filling out blanks at User:Soman/Lang-Help-am. Thanks, --Soman 21:36, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] stress

What is the stress assignment in Amharic? Specifically, I'm wondering where the stress is in abugida, but this is something that should be covered here in any case. — kwami (talk) 07:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)