- published: 16 Nov 2013
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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.
Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, Gəʿəz [ɡɨʕɨz]; also transliterated Gi'iz, and less precisely called Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language that originated in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court.
Today Ge'ez 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 also 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, Tigrinya may be used for sermons.
Also transliterated as ä, ū/û, ī/î, a, ē/ê, e/i, ō/ô.
Ge'ez is transliterated according to the following system:
Because Ge'ez is no longer a spoken language, the pronunciation of some consonants is not completely certain. Gragg (1997:244) writes "The consonants corresponding to the graphemes ś (Ge'ez ሠ) and ḍ (Ge'ez ፀ) have merged respectively with /s/ and /ṣ/ in the phonological system represented by the traditional pronunciation—and indeed in all modern Ethiopian Semitic. ... There is, however, no evidence either in the tradition or in Ethiopian Semitic [for] what value these consonants may have had in Ge'ez."