This article contains Ethiopic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ethiopic characters.

Ge'ez (ግዕዝ Gəʿəz), is a script used as an abugida for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an abjad used to write Ge'ez, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church. In Amharic and Tigrinya the script is often called fidäl (ፊደል), which means "script" or "alphabet".

The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, such as 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 has traditionally been used for Blin, a Cushitic language. Tigre, spoken in western and northern Eritrea and Eastern Sudan, is considered to resemble Ge'ez more so 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.

For the representation of sounds, this article uses a system that is common (though not universal) among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages. This differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet. See the articles on the individual languages for information on the pronunciation.

History and origins[link]

The earliest inscriptions of Ethio-Semitic in Ethiopia and Eritrea date to the 9th century BC in Epigraphic South Arabian (ESA), an Abjad shared with contemporary kingdoms in South Arabia. After the 7th and 6th centuries BC, however, variants of the script arose, evolving in the direction of the Ge'ez abugida (a writing system that is also called an alphasyllabary). This evolution can be seen most clearly in evidence from inscriptions (mainly graffiti on rocks and caves) in Tigray region in northern Ethiopia and the former province of Akkele Guzay in Eritrea.^[1] By the first centuries AD, what is called "Old Ethiopic" or the "Old Ge'ez alphabet" arose, an abjad written left-to-right (as opposed to boustrophedon like ESA) with letters basically identical to the first-order forms of the modern vocalized alphabet (e.g. "k" in the form of "kä"). There were also minor differences such as the letter "g" facing to the right, instead of to the left as in vocalized Ge'ez, and a shorter left leg of "l", as in ESA, instead of equally-long legs in vocalized Ge'ez (resembling the Greek letter lambda, somewhat).^[2] Vocalization of Ge'ez occurred in the fourth century, and though the first completely vocalized texts known are inscriptions by Ezana, vocalized letters predate him by some years, as an individual vocalized letter exists in a coin of his predecessor Wazeba.^[3][4] Roger Schneider^[who?] has also pointed out (in an early 1990s unpublished paper) anomalies in the known inscriptions of Ezana that imply that he was consciously employing an archaic style during his reign, indicating that vocalization could have occurred much earlier. As a result, some^[who?] believe that the vocalization may have been adopted to preserve the pronunciation of Ge'ez texts due to the already moribund or extinct status of Ge'ez, and that, by that time, the common language of the people were already later Ethio-Semitic languages. At least one of Wazeba's coins from the late 3rd/early 4th century contain a vocalized letter, some 30 or so years before Ezana.^[5] Kobishchanov, Daniels, and others have suggested possible influence from the Brahmic family of alphabets in vocalization, as they are also abugidas, and Aksum was an important part of major trade routes involving India and the Greco-Roman world throughout the common era of antiquity.^[6][7]

According to the beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the original consonantal form of the Ge'ez fidel was divinely revealed to Henos "as an instrument for codifying the laws", and the present system of vocalisation is attributed to a team of Aksumite scholars led by Frumentius (Abba Selama), the same missionary said to have converted King Ezana to Christianity in the 4th century AD.^[8] A separate tradition, recorded by Aleqa Taye, holds that the Ge'ez consonantal alphabet was first adapted by Zegdur, a legendary king of the Ag'azyan Sabaean dynasty held to have ruled in Ethiopia c. 1300 BC.^[9]

Ge'ez has 26 consonantal letters. Compared to the inventory of 29 consonants in the South Arabian alphabet, continuants of ġ, ẓ and the interdental fricatives (ḏ, ṯ) are missing, as well as South Arabian s³ (Ge'ez Sawt ሠ being derived from South Arabian s² ). On the other hand, emphatic P̣ait ጰ, a Ge'ez innovation, is a modification of Ṣädai ጸ, while Pesa ፐ is based on Tawe ተ.

Thus, there are 24 correspondences of Ge'ez and the South Arabian alphabet:

translit.	h	l	ḥ	m	ś (SA s2)	r	s (SA s1)	ḳ	b	t	ḫ	n
Ge'ez	ሀ	ለ	ሐ	መ	ሠ	ረ	ሰ	ቀ	በ	ተ	ኀ	ነ
South Arabian

translit.	ʾ	k	w	ʿ	z (SA ḏ)	y	d	g	ṭ	ṣ	ḍ	f
Ge'ez	አ	ከ	ወ	ዐ	ዘ	የ	ደ	ገ	ጠ	ጸ	ፀ	ፈ
South Arabian

Many of the letter names are cognate with those of Phoenician, and may thus be assumed for Proto-Sinaitic.

Ge'ez alphabets[link]

There were two alphabets used to write the Ge'ez language, an abjad and later an abugida.

Ge'ez abjad[link]

The abjad, used until ca. 330 AD, had 26 consonantal letters:

h, l, ḥ, m, ś, r, s, ḳ, b, t, ḫ, n, ʾ, k, w, ʿ, z, y, d, g, ṭ, p̣, ṣ, ṣ́, f, p

Vowels were not indicated.

Ge'ez abugida[link]

Genesis 29.11–16 in Ge’ez

Modern Ge'ez is written from left to right.

The Ge'ez abugida developed under the influence of Christian scripture by adding obligatory vocalic diacritics to the consonantal letters. Although there is a clear Greek influence, it has been suggested that the abugida system comes from missionaries from India. The diacritics for the vowels, u, i, a, e, ə, o, were fused with the consonants in a recognizable but slightly irregular way, so that the system is laid out as a syllabary. The original form of the consonant was used when the vowel was ä (/ə/), the so-called inherent vowel. The resulting forms are shown below in their traditional order. For some consonants, there is an eighth form for the diphthong -wa or -oa, and a ninth for -yä.

To represent a consonant with no following vowel, for example at the end of a syllable or in a consonant cluster, the ə (/ɨ/) form is used (the letter in the sixth column).

Labiovelar variants[link]

The letters for the labialized velar consonants are variants of the non-labialized velar consonants:

Unlike the other consonants, these labiovelar ones can only be combined with 5 different vowels:

Other alphabets[link]

The Ge'ez abugida has been adapted to several modern languages of Ethiopia. Frequently these required additional letters.

Additional letters[link]

Some letters were modified to create additional consonants for use in languages other than Ge'ez. This is typically done by adding a line at the top of a similar-sounding consonant.

The vocalized forms are shown below. Like the other labiovelars, these labiovelars can only be combined with 5 vowels.

Letters used in modern languages[link]

Amharic uses all the basic consonants, plus the ones indicated below. Some of the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants are also used.

Tigrinya has all the basic consonants, the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants except for ḫʷ (ኈ) plus the ones indicated below. A few of the basic consonants are falling into disuse in Eritrea. See Tigrinya language#Writing system for details.

Tigre uses the basic consonants except for ś (ሠ), ḫ (ኀ) and ḍ (ፀ). It also uses the ones indicated below. It does not use the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants.

Blin uses the basic consonants except for ś (ሠ), ḫ (ኀ) and ḍ (ፀ). It also uses the ones indicated below and the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants.

Note: "v" is used for words of foreign origin except for in some Gurage languages (e.g. cravat, 'tie' from French), and "x" is pronounced "h" in Amharic.

List order[link]

For Ge'ez, Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, the usual sorting order is called halehame (h–l–ħ–m). Where the labiovelar variants are used, these come immediately after the basic consonant, and are followed by other variants. In Tigrinya, for example, the letters based on ከ come in this order: ከ, ኰ, ኸ, ዀ. In Blin, the sorting order is slightly different.

The alphabetical order is similar to that found in some other South Semitic scripts, and curiously, in the ancient Ugaritic alphabet (which also attests the northern Semitic '–b–g–d (abugida) order). Dillman notes^[10] that, excepting newer forms, the letters in the first half of one order are all those found in the second half of the other order (though not in the same sequence); he suggests this would indicate a time when Semitic letters were divided into two rows, and the alphabet might commence with either row.

African diaspora usage[link]

Ge'ez is a sacred script in the Rastafarian religion. Roots reggae musicians have used it in album art.

The film 500 Years Later (፭፻-ዓመታት በኋላ) was the first mainstream Western documentary to use Ge'ez characters, which were used in the title. The script also appears in the trailer and promotional material of the film.

Numerals[link]

Ge'ez uses a systems of ones and tens comparable to the Hebrew, Arabic abjad and Greek numerals, but unlike these systems, rather than giving numeric values to letters, it has digits derived from the Coptic letter-numbers:

It has been claimed by Georges Ifrah that Ethiopian numerals were borrowed from the Greek numerals in the fourth century CE,^[11] but this has been disputed by Ayele Bekerie of Cornell University, who claims that the Ethiopian system was developed independently.^[12]

Unicode[link]

Ethiopic has been assigned Unicode 3.0 codepoints between U+1200 and U+137F (decimal 4608–4991), containing the consonantal letters for Ge'ez, Amharic, and Tigrinya, punctuation and numerals. Additionally, in Unicode 4.1, there is the supplement range from U+1380 to U+139F (decimal 4992–5023) containing letters for Sebatbeit and tonal marks, and the extended range between U+2D80 and U+2DDF (decimal 11648–11743) containing letters needed for writing Sebatbeit, Me'en and Blin. Finally in Unicode 6.0, there is the extended-A range from U+AB00 to U+AB2F (decimal 43776–43823) containing letters for Gamo-Gofa-Dawro, Basketo and Gumuz.

See also[link]

• South Arabian alphabet
• History of the alphabet

Literature[link]

• Marcel Cohen, "La prononciation traditionnelle du Guèze (éthiopien classique)", in: Journal asiatique (1921) Sér. 11 / T. 18.
• Gabe F. Scelta, The Comparative Origin and Usage of the Ge’ez writing system of Ethiopia (2001)

References[link]

External links[link]

• website with lessons on how to write the Ge’ez script
• omniglot.com
• ancientscripts.com
• Chart correlating IPA values for the Amharic alphabet
• Senamirmir Projects: Ethiopic Fonts
• Unicode specification
  • Ethiopic
  • Ethiopic Supplement
  • Ethiopic Extended
• Unicode assignments for Ethiopic characters
  • Ge'ez typewriting machine
• Ethiopic Character Entry by Dr. Aberra Molla ዶ/ር ኣበራ ሞላ