Ge'ez script
Ge'ez (ግዕዝ Gəʿəz) (also known as Ethiopic) is a script used as an abugida (syllable alphabet) for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an abjad (consonant-only alphabet) and was first used to write Ge'ez, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. In Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is often called fidäl (ፊደል), meaning "script" or "alphabet".
The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, particularly Amharic in Ethiopia, and Tigrinya in both 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 has traditionally been used for Blin, a Cushitic language. Tigre, spoken in western and northern Eritrea, is considered to resemble Ge'ez more than do the other derivative languages. Some other languages in the Horn of Africa, such as Oromo, used to be written using Ge'ez, but have migrated to Latin-based orthographies.
Ge'ez language
Geʻez (/ˈɡiːɛz/; ግዕዝ, Gəʿəz [ɡɨʕɨz]; also transliterated Giʻiz, also referred to by some as "Ethiopic") is an ancient South Semitic language that originated in the northern region of Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court.
Today, Geʻez remains only as the main language used in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, and 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, Tigrigna may be used for sermons. Tigrigna and Tigre are closely related to Geʻez with at least four different configurations proposed. Some linguists do not believe that Geʻez constitutes the common ancestor of modern Ethiopian languages, but that Geʻez became a separate language early on from some hypothetical, completely unattested language, and can thus be seen as an extinct sister language of Tigre and Tigrinya. The foremost Ethiopian experts such as Amsalu Aklilu point to the vast proportion of inherited nouns that are unchanged, and even spelled identically in both Geʻez and Amharic (and to a lesser degree, Tigrinya).
Podcasts:
