Ge'ez script

History and origins

The earliest inscriptions of Semitic languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia 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. 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). Vocalization of Ge'ez occurred in the 4th 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. Linguist Roger Schneider has also pointed out (in an early 1990s unpublished paper) anomalies in the known inscriptions of Ezana that imply that he was consciously employing an archaic style during his reign, indicating that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 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 or early 4th century contains a vocalized letter, some 30 or so years before Ezana. 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.

According to the beliefs of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and 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 the king Ezana to Christianity in the 4th century AD. It has been argued that the vowel marking pattern of the script reflects a South Asian system, such as would have been known by Frumentius. 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.

Ge'ez has 26 consonantal letters. Compared to the inventory of 29 consonants in the South Arabian alphabet, continuants are missing of ġ, ẓ, and South Arabian s³ (Ge'ez Sawt ሠ being derived from South Arabian s² ), as well as z and ṯ, these last two absences reflecting the collapse of interdental with alveolar fricatives. 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:

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

Ge'ez alphabets

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

Ge'ez abjad

The abjad, used until c. 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

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. 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

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:

Adaptations to other languages

The Ge'ez abugida has been adapted to several modern languages of Eritrea and Ethiopia. Frequently, they required additional letters.

Additional letters

Some letters were modified to create additional consonants for use in languages other than Ge'ez. It is typically done by adding a horizontal line at the top of a similar-sounding consonant. The pattern is most commonly used to mark a palatalized version of the original consonant.

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

Letters used in modern alphabets

The Amharic alphabet uses all the basic consonants plus the ones indicated below. Some of the Ge'ez labiovelar 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. "X" is pronounced as "h" in Amharic.

List order

For Ge'ez, Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, the usual sort 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 other South Semitic scripts, as well as in the ancient Ugaritic alphabet, which attests both the southern Semitic h-l-ħ-m order and the northern Semitic '–b–g–d (abugida) order over three thousand years ago.

Other usage

Ge'ez is a sacred script in the Rastafari movement of thought. Roots reggae musicians have used it in album art.

The films 500 Years Later (፭፻-ዓመታት በኋላ) and Motherland (እናት ሀገር) are two mainstream Western documentaries to use Ge'ez characters in the titles. The script also appears in the trailer and promotional material of the films.

Numerals

Ge'ez uses a system of ones and tens comparable to the Hebrew, Arabic abjad and Greek numerals.

Ethiopian numerals were borrowed from the Greek numerals, possibly via Coptic uncial letters.

Punctuation

Punctuation, much of it modern, includes

፠ section mark ፡ word separator ። full stop (period) ፣ comma ፤ colon ፥ semicolon ፦ preface colon. Uses: ፧ question mark ፨ paragraph separator

Unicode

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, Meʻen 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.

Literature

Azeb Amha. 2010. On loans and additions to the fidäl (Ethiopic) writing system. In The Idea of Writing: Play and Complexity, Alexander J. de Voogt, Irving L. Finkel (eds.), 179-196. Brill.

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)