User talk:Yhever

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[edit] Tigrinya

Thanks for the Tigrinya references, Yhever. (I hadn't even known about Kane's dictionary; will have to get it!) I'll be working on the rest of the grammar in the coming weeks, so be on the lookout for mistakes. -- MikeGasser (talk) 22:19, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sebat Bet Gurage

Hi. I see now who you are (from Sharon Rose's Gurage-Silt'e Research Group page). That explains all of those references on the SBG page! I've been working on a section on SBG phonology, but you obviously know more than I do. So please check it out after I add it (later today). Also it seems from what I can tell that Muher should definitely have its own entry; isn't this right? -- MikeG (talk) 20:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Well, being a member of the Gurage-Silt'e Research Group doesn't make me a celebrity or anything... I am an M.A. student of Linguistics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and I study Semitic languages in general, though I focus on Ethiopian languages such as Amharic and Chaha.
Now, as for your question about Muher, I find it quite strange that so many West-Gurage languages are classified together as one language. You probably know the saying that "a language is a dialect with an army and navy..."; Čäha and Äža are quite similar, whereas Muher is pretty far away (some of its features are closer to North-Gurage). I think that each of these "dialects" should have a separate article, and that "Sebat-Bet" should be no more than a list of references to the other articles, but that's just my opinion.
The classification of Gurage as a whole is usually tripartite (though different scholars may disagree on the classification of this or that dialect): West-Gurage, East-Gurage and North-Gurage. Maybe the common features of each of these three groups can be described in an article named "Gurage Languages" and then the specific bits would be described under the title of each dialect/language.
Yes, I agree that a change is in order. I'm not sure how SBG got started. It clearly is based on Ethnologue's classification, but I wonder where *that* comes from?? Ethnologue leans so often the other way, sometimes counting what speakers consider to be a single language as scores of languages (they do this for many American Indian languages). Possibly their decision stems from the current language policy in SNNRS, which would of course have partly political motivations (though none of these groups have an "army and navy"!). I haven't been able to figure out what the policy in Gurage zone is, except with respect to Silt'e (they've effectively seceded from the Gurage zone and the "Gurage" label and are using Silt'e in education in their zone). Anyway we don't have to follow Ethnologue of course. You know a lot more about the languages than I do (I know much more about Amharic and more about Tigrinya than any of the Gurage languages), but yes, short articles about each of the three separate groupings with pointers to longer articles on the different dialects/languages would be a good idea. But is there enough shared among all "Gurage languages" for one general article (impersonal? anything else?)? If we're going to this, it needs to be proposed somewhere. Maybe in the Semitic languages article? Or the Ethiopian Semitic languages article (currently still a stub)? Fortunately this kind of decision, unlike almost everything else, should not anger too many people. — MikeG (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I wanted to add that I think it would be a good idea to make a long-term plan for what we'd like to have for Ethiopian Semitic languages. I'd say it would be possible to have substantial articles for Amharic, Tigrinya, Ge'ez, Tigre, Harari, Chaha, Soddo, Silt'e, and maybe Inor and Muher. I've started to do this for Tigrinya (as well as Oromo, the only Cushitic language I know anything about, in parallel) and have been planning to do something similar perhaps for Silt'e (Gutt's work makes this pretty easy). The Western Gurage languages are more challenging to synthesize, I think, because of the incredible morphophonology, but that's even more of a reason to include them, I'd say, so that people will be aware of this. I could even imagine a separate article on Western Gurage Morphophonology (you'd be the ideal author). Anyway part of a long-term plan would be to divide up the work in an efficient way. — MikeG (talk) 03:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking about an article about Gurage languages as a whole to explain the problems of seeing these languages as a group. Leslau has an article "Is there a Proto-Gurage" -- so that this whole discussion can be put there. Then two more articles: "West-Gurage" and "East-Gurage"; I believe we have agreed that "West-Gurage" is not one language, though the West-Gurage languages have many common features. An article on "East-Gurage" -- that, as you know, some of its speaker won't acknowledge any relationship to "Gurage" -- can anyhow show the similarities between Silt'e, Z(w)ay, and even Harari.

I see. Yes, the article on Gurage languages makes sense from this perspective. — MikeG (talk) 18:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, Äža and Čäha are really close to each other (though certainly not identical) but even though there's less direct knowledge on Äža, an article about Äža can tell the known differences (such as the existance of phoentic gemination, the alternation of the base in the positive and negative perfect, the definite article -we, and some minor differences in morphological forms).

I am usually a bit cautious here in Wikipedia, and generally I only add small bits rather than writing whole paragraphs myself. I had a bad experience in the Amharic article, where almost all of my suggestions were immediately rejected. It is true that in the meantime it doesn't seem like there are many people dealing with Gurage languages around here, so things may pass quietly. I am willing to dedicate time to this whole rewrite together with you (it seems we are the only two interested in this subject, right?).

I've been avoiding editing the Amharic article for this reason; I was afraid somebody would jump on whatever I did. So even though I know more about Amharic, I've been working on other places (Tigrinya, Oromo, Gurage) where there were obvious needs and no "competition". (It's too bad things have to come out this way in Wikipedia.) Yes, it seems like it's just the two of us, and I doubt we're going to "compete" :-) There's a limit to what I can do because of my lack of knowledge, but I was going to try to work more on Silt'e next, if that's OK with you. I've been reading some of Berhanu Chamora and Hetzron's book on Inor, and it looks more difficult to get across. — MikeG (talk) 18:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Now, the first step of this ambitious undertaking is to move most of what you wrote under "Sebat Bet Gurage language" to "Chaha language"; and then to rename "Sebat Bet Gurage language" into "Sebat Bet Gurage languages". yhever 11:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm still wondering if we should get the agreement of the larger community first. Not that I expect it to be controversial. If you want, I can post something, maybe in Semitic Languages: talk, or Ethiopian Semitic Languages: talk. — MikeG (talk) 18:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm not really familiar with the procedure... Do you mean something like suggesting the above mentioned changes in the discussion page of Sebat Bet Gurage language? yhever 03:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking on the discussion page for Semitic languages or Ethiopian Semitic languages. — MikeG (talk) 22:09, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, I posted something to Talk:Ethiopian Semitic languages. I see from an earlier posting that I'm probably the one to blame for following Ethnologue in having an article on the "Sebat Bet Gurage language". I hope I've learned my lesson. So the only question remaining is whether we use "language" or "dialect" for Chaha, Ezha, Muher, etc. I guess the safest is what you suggest for Chaha: "language". I glanced around at articles on comparable situations elsewhere in the world, and it seems that the unofficial standard is to prefer "language", though sometimes, as in the case of Sicilian, people have had to fight to maintain this. — MikeG (talk) 23:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userpage

Ever thought about having a user page? Red links are alarming to many Wikipedia editors (well, to me at least -- they look me in the face and say 'there is nothing here!', and 'edit me!'). Anyway, just a thought. Kind regards, — mark ✎ 19:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethiopia

I thought you might be interested. Check out especially the Transliteration section, which I'm sure you'll be interested in. Hope to see you contribute!

ዮም (Yom) | contribs • Talk 16:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey! Long time no see. I've revived the debate section at the transliteration section, as there are a couple issues that still need to be hammered out (basically simple consonants and Ge'ez transliteration for the 3 "s" sounds and "S.appa/D.appa." You should also check out Talk:Proto-Semitic language, as you have some info and sources that will be of great use, as the list of sounds is going to be supplemented with a description of the debate. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 04:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
On that note, I've apparently undone your work regarding shin vs. śat on the basis that the article at "śat" was correct. You certainly know more about this than I do, but are you sure for having ሰ "s" as the derivative of ṯ instead of ሠ "š/s" and for having ሰ "s" as the derivative of "š" instead of ሠ "š/s"? I know for a fact that ሠ is used to spell "selassie," which derives from proto-Semitic ṯ. Moreover, Tigrinya, the direct descendent of Ge'ez (Tigre not exactly so, apparently, from what I've read) has "sheleshte" as the word for "three," preserving the "š" sound (whether or not this is the case for all "ṯ" sounds in Ge'ez, I'm not sure, which is why I said "š/s"). For the derivative of "š," isn't it ሠ again? ሠ is used to write nigus, which is negash in Tigrinya (I guess nagāš in Ge'ez), but it seems to be derived from "š" in this case from what you pointed out at the Proto-semitic talk page (because of the hebrew cognate "nōgəśīm," where the "s" derived from "ś"). Still, I have a nagging feeling that ሠ represented "š" as well...You know better, though, so I'll wait for your response. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 05:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
For the correspondence between the two s sounds in Gə`əz and the other Semitic languages, one reference is: Wolf Leslau (1987), Comparative Dictionary of Ge`ez, p. xxvii (which I have at home), though I can look for other references if there's any need.
Now the points you mentioned should be divided into two: one is the root of the word "three" (and its derivatives, such as "trinity"), and the other is the treatment of s and š in the modern Ethiopian languages.
As for the first point, the correct correspondence is as follows:
Proto-Semitic Gə`əz Arabic Hebrew
ṯ s ṯ š
š s s š
s s s s
ś ś š ś
This can be demonstrated with the following examples:
1. (P.S. *m-ṯ-l) G. m-s-l = Ar. m-ṯ-l = H. m-š-l "be similar"
2. (P.S. *šalām) G. salām = Ar. salām = H. šālōm "peace".
3. (P.S. *’-s-r) G. ’asara = Ar. ’asara = H. ’āsar "bind, imprison".
4. (P.S. *k-r-ś) G. karś = Ar. kirš/kariš = H. kāreś "belly".
As you can see, these are the regular correspondences (the above mentioned examples are only meant to give the general idea, though there are dozens more). "Laws" of sound changes are made according to the norm, whereas difficult cases are put aside, and indeed there are also quite a few number of words that don't follow their supposed sound correspondences. Such cases are usually explained as internal borrowing between Semitic languages or as a result of analogy (i.e. words with similar meaning that are changed so as to sound more alike, assimilation/dissimilation of sounds inside the word, etc.)
Numerals are notorious for exhibiting analogical changes (cf. the first consonant of Proto-Indo-european *kʷetwóres "four" and *pénkʷe "five" that had been merged into kʷ in Latin quattuor, quinque). Joshua Blau, in his article "Marginalia Semitica II" (in: Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972)), p. 80, has argued that South-Semitic languages such as Epigraphic South-Arabian, and Gə`əz preserve the old root *ślṯ that has been shifted to *ṯlṯ in the Northern languages.
Now back to the modern languages. s and ś were merged in the Ethiopian languages in quite an early date. Gideon Goldenberg wrote in his review article to Wolf Leslau's comparative dictionary (in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 112 (1992), p. 79 = G. Goldenberg, Studies in Semitic Linguistics, Jerusalem 1998, p. 334): "... the indiscriminate interchange of the letters within each of these groups [i.e. ’-‘; h-ḥ-ḫ; s-ś; ṣ-ṣ́] had already begun in the epigraphic documents while Ge`ez was still alive, and the phonetic merger of the sounds which they represent must have occurred even earlier ..."
The sound š (ሸ) has nothing to do with Proto-Semitic *š, as it is an internal innovation of these languages. In Amharic it is a consequence of the palatalization of the sound s (whatever its origin may be) -- as in ነጋሽ which is the participle of ነገሰ and corresponds to Gə`ez nagāśi.
In Tigrinya, the same sound apears in labialized words, as in: šäb`attä, šommontä. This phenomenon has been described by Rainer M. Voigt, in his article "Labialization and the So-Called Sibilant Anomaly in Tigrinya", in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 51/3 (1988), pp. 525-536.
Proto-Semitic consonants should be distinguished from innovative consonants. Cf. Proto-Semitic *ṯ and ṯ in Biblical Hebrew that is only an allophone of t after vowels.
I hope this answers your questions. I have been busy lately, and I'm not sure when I'll be ready again to continue the discussion on the transliteration of Ethiopian languages, though I'll do my best to get back to it soon. 07:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your answers, they were more than satisfactory. I was able to find an article through JSTOR on the palatalization of s, which is apparently complicated (involving a labialized "sʷ" among other things). I do have a question regarding your note of "i.e. ’-‘; h-ḥ-ḫ; s-ś; ṣ-ṣ́" for the interchange of letters. I'm most surprised by ' for ` (alif for ayin), as it never happens (that I'm aware of) in Tigrinya or Tigre, the direct continuations (at least certainly for Tgn) of Ge'ez, and no h-ḥ merger occurs in those languages as far as I'm aware (I know of the ḥ-ḫ in Tigrinya and I believe also Tigre, as well as s-ś and ṣ-ṣ́ confusion). Actually, I've never heard of "h" deriving from anything but "h" for Northern EthioSemitic languages (of course it's different in the South). Do you have details as to when each of these pairs begin to be confused (references to actual inscriptions or something like that would be much appreciated). Thanks. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 04:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
One more thing. Since ሠ represents ś, is its name properly "śawt," and śat "sat," or were the names mixed up on the Ge'ez alphabet page too? — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 22:58, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I answered your question here and in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethiopia/Transliteration, though it seems that the discussion over there has been stopped for more than a month. I would like the issue of transliteration to be settled...
Now as for your last comments: It is true that Tigrinya and Tigre have preserved the laryngeals, though the tradition of Ge`ez is quite "Amharo-centric", so to speak. It's interesting that in the Tigrinya Bible, Ge`ez loanwords are transcribed with their Amharic pronunciation, i.e. without ḥ and `. e.g. እግዚኣብሄር (and not: እግዚአብሔር), ህዝብ (and not: ሕዝብ, though the Tigrinya form of the cognate word is ሕዝቢ), ዘለኣለም (and not: ዘለዓለም), etc.
Wolf Leslau in his Comparative Dictionary of Ge`ez (1991) wrote that (p. xix) : "There are certain consonants that have lost their original pronunciation in Amharic, and probably also in a later stage of Geez. As a result they are no longer used correctly in orthography. These consonants are: አ-ዐ ’-‘, ሀ-ሐ-ኀ (h-ḥ-ḫ), ሰ-ሠ (s-ś), and ጸ-ፀ (ṣ-ḍ)." He also ascribed this phenomenon to Amharic (p. xx: "Indeed, the influence of Amharic is reflected in the present-day pronunciation of Geez").
I am sorry, but I am not familiar enough with the Ge`ez epigraphic inscription to describe its orthography. All I have is Goldenberg's citation above.
As for the letter names in Geez, I was not aware that they actually have names. I am only aware of the terms ሰ-እሳት : ሠ-ንጉሥ and ጸ-ጸሎት : ፀ-ፀሐይ that are used to distinguish these homophonous letters. Śat seems to be wrong, but then again -- what is the source for the names Säwt and Ḍäppa? yhever 00:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I saw the discussion of ś and s there. There are still some issues that need to be hammered out, and with relations to the MoS for Ethiopia, too, so I'm going to archive and revive the debate. It's odd that Tigrinya uses spellings indicative of Amharic pronounciation (even though Amharic spelling is usually the same as Ge'ez spelling). Regarding pharyngeals, if Tigrinya and Tigre are to be the direct descendents of Ge'ez and Amharic a southern offshoot from a certain dialect or cluster of dialects, then Leslau's assertion of loss of pharyngeals in later Ge'ez doesn't make much sense. By the this time, I would think that Southern and Northern Ethiopic would have been differentiated enough to be called different languages - i.e. in the late/post-Aksumite period (= early middle Ages). Harari maintained ḥ (with the merger h-ḥ-ḫ described above ala Tigrinya), though possibly due to Arabic influence. Whenever the epigraphic variations between the three "h"s begin, I'm pretty confident that the language can no longer be called Ge'ez, or is Ge'ez written by a non-speaker.
Regarding the letter names, there's a lot of good information here (note ሳድስ instead of more common ሳልስ and a couple mistakes, ራዕብ for ራብዕ a number of times and ርዕስ for ርእስ at least once, properly ርእሥ?). Many are cognate with NW semitic names, but their validity as native terms is not yet certain. There is the possibility of borrowing from Hebrew (i.e. through the bible), though some of the names are almost certainly not borrowed due to the lack of a cognate with Hebrew. The names you are using are more Amharic names. E.g. "Hameru Ha" (i.e. ሐ-ሐመር using your system) for ሐ. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 01:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, I said I know next to nothing about the old epigraphic inscriptions (and I apologize for my ignorance). As for parchment manuscripts, you can compare for yourself in the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Wiesbaden 2003), pp. 566-567 -- two biblical manuscripts are reproduced there, one is "from the pre-14th cent." (Abba Gärima I) and the second is the Ge`ez Bible edition "published in the year of the 30th anniversary of Haylä Səllase's corronation". In Mk. 3:9 the following passage apears:
ወይቤሎሙ ፡ ለአርዳኢሁ ፡ ያፅንሑ ፡ ሎቱ ፡ ሐመረ ፡ ከመ ፡ እይትጋፍዖ ፡ ሰብእ (Abba Gärima ms.)
ወይቤሎሙ ፡ ለአርዳኢሁ ፡ ያጽንሑ ፡ ሎቱ ፡ ሐመረ ፡ ከመ ፡ ኢይትጋፍዕዎ ፡ ሰብእ (Haylä Səllase ms.)
"And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him [because of the multitude,] lest they should throng him." (King James Bible)
The interesting part here is that (at least according to Leslau's comparative dictionary) it is Haylä-Səllase's edition that has the historically correct form "ያጽንሑ" whereas the older manuscript has the false "ያፅንሑ".
Saying that "[w]henever the epigraphic variations between the three "h"s begin, I'm pretty confident that the language can no longer be called Ge'ez, or is Ge'ez written by a non-speaker" actually amounts to dismissing most of the textual evidence of Ge`ez, since as Goldenberg wrote, the interchange of these letters began in a very early date. yhever 22:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Languages of Ethiopia

Can you take a look at Languages of Ethiopia? I have the feeling that it's classification of the Gurage languages isn't very good (mainly because Argobba is listed twice, once with Amharic as it should be as Transverse, but also as Outer. Also, there's a "Kistane" language also called "Selti," which seems to be a variant of Silt'e). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 04:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)