posted 09 April 2005 07:02 PM            

Ge'ez is the descendant of what is called Ethiopic (Proto-Ge'ez) language. We know that this is part of Afrasan language group, which we have covered frequently in our discussions.

"Until recently, it has been thought that the Ge'ez syllographs were brought to Ethiopia from South Arabia. The findings of several Ge'ez inscriptions in the 19th century there, at a time when Yemen was a British colony, resulted in an interpretation, its most salient feature being: the Ethiopian civilization including its writing system has its anteriority in South Arabia. Thanks to the works of scholars such as Jacqueline Pirenne, Rudolfo Fattovitch, Ephraim Isaac, Getachew Hailu, Hailu Habtu, and Asras Yanesaw, what I call the South Arabian paradigm or the external paradigm has been convincingly challenged, if not refuted.

In fact, Munro-Hay (1991) of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, in his most recent book, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity, appeared to have reached a conclusion that suggests a paradigm shift. More and more scholars are now looking at the Ethiopian civilization within the framework of African history and cultures." - Ayele Bekerie, PhD; Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University.

Speaking of Dr. Getachew Haile, here are excerpts from his interview, back in 2001:

Senamirmir: Would you share with us your current research on Ge'ez and other languages.

Dr. Getatchew: There are quite a few Ge'ez and some Amharic texts which have relevance to the history of our country in general and the Christian Church in particular. I have studied, edited, translated, and published a few of them. I would like to continue doing this. The study of old Amharic interests me very much. I have studied some texts in 18th-century Amharic, more than any scholar I know. I have some articles whose completion awaits my attention. The problem is there are not many texts in old Amharic; the few there are what one finds copied in the margins and covers of manuscripts of Ge'ez texts. These are not always legible because they are worn out.

Senamirmir: What led to the demise of Ge'ez from a spoken language?

Dr. Getatchew: I do not know. I do not even know who its speakers were. But it is natural that languages die out when their speakers, especially their children, speak the language of the majority in their neighborhood. In the case of Ge'ez and many similarly disappeared languages, the culprit is Amharic, Tigre, and Tigrean in the north, and Amharic and Oromigna in the South. The disappearance of a language is tragic for anthropologists but highly desirable for the unity of the nation. Does not the Bible say languages were created to be divisive?

Senamirmir: It seems that the general belief is that Ethiopic script originated from Sabaean or South Arabian script. Is there any relationship between proto-Ge'ez (the language) and any of the Sabaean languages?

Dr. Getatchew: There is similarity between the Sabaean (or South Arabic) script and the Ge'ez fidel. They are clearly related but no one knows the nature of their relationship. Did they both come from one origin, as I believe they did, or is one of them (which one?) a descendant from the other (from which one)?

We do not know what proto-Ge'ez looks like. Scholars have proposed that it is the ancestor of the Semitic languages found in Ethiopia, including Ge'ez. But one thing is clear to me: the fact that the Ethiopian script is similar to that of the Sabaean languages has influenced scholars to assume a closer relationship between Ge'ez (or proto-Ge'ez) and South Arabic. This assumption would have not been taken as a firm fact if the Ge'ez fidel was similar to the Hebrew or Arabic or Syriac script. In short, I do not see the closeness of Ge'ez to any of the South Arabic languages being greater than to Arabic or Hebrew.

Senamirmir: What is the state of Ge'ez as a language and what holds for its future?

Dr. Getatchew: The trend is that it will give way to the modern vernaculars, to Amharic and Tigregna in particular. I mention the two languages because they are Ge'ez's natural inheritors. However, Ge'ez, though a dead language, will live forever because a great deal has been written in it. Scholars will come to it again and again.

Senamirmir: Before the advent of the modern state in Ethiopia, what was the medium that helped Amharic to expand?

Dr. Getatchew: When was the advent of modern state in Ethiopia? Amharic owes nothing or nobody to its expansion. It did it on its own. The Church was against it because it was, as it still is, a threat to Ge'ez. Amharic gained prominence when the Aksumite dynasty was overthrown and the royal family took refuge among the Amharic-speaking population. Although the successor to Aksum was the Zague dynasty, the "legitimate" claimants of the throne who took shelter among the Amharic-speaking population must have become Amharic speakers, giving a significant privilege to Amharic. Since then, and especially since the claimants regained (restored) their authority in 1270, as the Solomonic dynasty, Amharic expanded slowly but consistently. The fact that the ruling class became Amharic speakers must have attracted Amharic speakers to the palace as functionaries and non-Amharic speakers to adopt it in the course of time. Another factor is the fight among religious leaders to win the hearts and minds of the people. The "fighters" must have been forced to use it, in place of Ge'ez, in order to attract Amharic speakers to their versions of Christianity. These included the Catholic missionaries, the Orthodox clergy, and later the Protestant missionaries. They all had to use the language of the people they targeted, the Amharic-speaking Christians.

Senamirmir: How close was Ethiopia's relationship to Egypt that it affected its languages and social life?

Dr. Getatchew: Ethiopia's contact with Egypt was through the clergy. The metropolitan (the archbishop), Ethiopia's spiritual head, was a Copt (as Christian Egyptians call themselves) until the middle of the twentieth century. He came to Ethiopia with his entourage of Copts. And Ethiopian monks went to Egypt and the Holy Land. These contacts were the means of Egyptian (Coptic) influence on Ethiopia. It was limited to the literature and the spiritual leaders' thought process. The style of Ethiopian clerics in writing is highly influenced by the Copts' Christian Arabic.

Source: Courtesy of SenaMirmir

Conversation with Christopher Ehret:

Ehret... the early Semites were just a few Africans arriving to find a lot of other people already in the area. So they're going to have to accommodate. Some groups, maybe ones who live in peripheries, in areas with lower population densities, may be able to impose the henotheistic religion they arrived with."

WHC [interviewer]: How does a small group of Semites coming in from Africa transform the language of a region in which they are a minority?

Ehret: One of the archaeological possibilities is a group called the Mushabaeans. This group moves in on another group that's Middle Eastern. Out of this, you get the Natufian people. Now, we can see in the archaeology that people were using wild grains the Middle East very early, back into the late glacial age, about 18,000 years ago. But they were just using these seeds as they were. At the same time, in this northeastern corner of Africa, another people ­ the Mushabaeans? ­ are using grindstones along the Nile, grinding the tubers of sedges. Somewhere along the way, they began to grind grain as well. Now, it's in the Mushabian period that grindstones come into the Middle East.

Conceivably, with a fuller utilization of grains, they're making bread. We can reconstruct a word for "flatbread," like Ethiopian injira. This is before proto-Semitic divided into Ethiopian and ancient Egyptian languages. So, maybe, the grindstone increases how fully you use the land. This is the kind of thing we need to see more evidence for. We need to get people arguing about this.

And by the way: we can reconstruct the word for "grindstone" back to the earliest stage of Afrasan. Even the Omati have it. And there are a lot of common words for using grasses and seeds.

posted 09 April 2005 11:59 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by rasol:
Ethiopian language map:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=Ethiopia

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posted 11 April 2005 11:22 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by rasol:
The Lessons of Deep-Time Historical-Comparative Reconstruction in Afroasiatic" - Chistopher Ehret

For one, the northerly Afroasiatic languages (Semitic, Berber, Egyptian) appear together to form just one sub-branch of the family, and if relied upon to the exclusion of the other, deeper, branchings of
the family, give a misleading picture of overall Afroasiatic reconstruction. In addition, Afroasiatic is a family of much greater time depth than even most of its students realize; its first divergences trace
back probably at least 15,000 years ago, not just 8,000 or 9,000 as many believe"

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The other here, would include the Cushitic, Omotic and the Chadic languages.

This must have obviously been a point Ehret made, before talking of the 'Afrasan' application. 'Afroasiatic' is yet another misleading term, the time for which should be coming to a close. What Mr. Ehret says about this language group, in terms of its origins, is becoming well known to many, if not already the case. It takes one or a few mainstream scholars to take the initiative of doing the right thing based on a solid foundation, and interactive sites/ discussion boards such as this, for the new and appropriate terms to take complete flight.