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Ge'ez also called
Ethiopic, is a script used as an
abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an
abjadAn abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
used to write
Ge'ezGe'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church. In
AmharicAmharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
and
TigrinyaTigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...
the script is often called
, which means "script" or "alphabet".
The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, such as Amharic in
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and Tigrinya in
EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
and Ethiopia. It is also used for
SebatbeitSebat Bet is a Gurage language, spoken in several dialects found in the western Gurage Zone:*Chaha is spoken in Cheha woreda, and is the best studied of these dialects;*Ezha is spoken in Ezhana Wolene woreda,...
, Me'en, and most other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it is used for
TigreFor other uses please see Tigre Tigre is a Semitic language, which, along with Tigrinya, is believed to be one of direct descendants of the extinct Ge'ez language...
, and it has traditionally been used for Blin, a
Cushitic languageThe Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...
. 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 AfricaThe Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
, such as
OromoOromo, also known as Afaan Oromo, Oromiffa, Afan Boran, Afan Orma, and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names , is an Afro-Asiatic language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic family. Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by more than 25 million Oromo and...
, used to be written using Ge'ez but have migrated to
LatinThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
-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 languagesEthiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
. This differs somewhat from the conventions of the
International Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
. See the articles on the individual languages for information on the pronunciation.
History and origins
The earliest inscriptions of
Ethio-SemiticEthiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
in
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and
EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
date to the 9th century BC in
Epigraphic South ArabianThe ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
(ESA), an
AbjadAn abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
shared with contemporary kingdoms in
South ArabiaSouth Arabia as a general term refers to several regions as currently recognized, in chief the Republic of Yemen; yet it has historically also included Najran, Jizan, and 'Asir which are presently in Saudi Arabia, and Dhofar presently in Oman...
. After the 7th and 6th centuries BC, however, variants of the script arose, evolving in the direction of the Ge'ez
abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
(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 GuzayAkkele Guzay was a province in the interior of Eritrea until 1996, when the newly independent government of Eritrea consolidated all provinces into six regions. Akkele Guzay's population predominantly consisted of followers of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church. Traditionally being part of the...
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
boustrophedonBoustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in...
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
lambdaLambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is related to the Phoenician letter Lamed . Letters in other alphabets that stemmed from lambda include the Roman L and the Cyrillic letter El...
, somewhat). 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
coinAksumite currency was the first native currency to be issued in Africa without direct control by an outside culture like the Romans or Greeks. It was issued and circulated from the middle of the height of the Kingdom of Aksum under King Endubis around AD 270 until it began its decline in the first...
of his predecessor
WazebaWazeba was a king of Axum in northeastern Africa. He is primarily known from the coins he minted during his reign. He was the first king to write the legends of his coins in Ge'ez, and the only king of Axum to use that language on his gold currency.S. C...
.
Roger SchneiderRoger Schneider is a Swiss long track speed skater who participates in international competitions.-Personal records:-Career highlights:European Allround ChampionshipsNational Championships-External links:***...
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/early 4th century contain a vocalized letter, some 30 or so years before Ezana. Kobishchanov,
DanielsPeter T. Daniels is a scholar of writing systems, specializing in typology. He was co-editor of the book The World's Writing Systems , and he introduced the terms abjad and abugida as modern linguistic terms...
, and others have suggested possible influence from the
Brahmic family of alphabetsThe Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
in vocalization, as they are also
abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
s, and
AksumThe Kingdom of Aksum or Axum, also known as the Aksumite Empire, was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period ca. 4th century BC to achieve prominence by the 1st century AD...
was an important part of major trade routes involving India and the
Greco-Roman worldThe Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture,...
throughout the common era of antiquity.
According to the beliefs of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo ChurchThe Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the predominant Oriental Orthodox Christian church in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church was administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959, when it was granted its own Patriarch by Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All...
, 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. 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 of
ġThe Arabic letter , commonly known in Egypt as , is one of the six letters in the Arabic alphabet not in the twenty-two akin to the Phoenician alphabet . It is the twenty second letter in the new Persian alphabet. It represents the sound or, in the case of Classical Arabic, . In Persian language...
,
{{About|the script|the language|Ge'ez language}}
{{Contains Ethiopic text}}
{{alphabet}}
Ge'ez ({{lang|gez|ግዕዝ}} {{transl|sem|Gəʿəz}}), also called Ethiopic, is a script used as an abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an abjadAn abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
used to write Ge'ezGe'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church. In AmharicAmharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
and TigrinyaTigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...
the script is often called {{transl|sem|fidäl}} ({{lang|gez|ፊደል}}), which means "script" or "alphabet".
The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, such as Amharic in EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and Tigrinya in EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
and Ethiopia. It is also used for SebatbeitSebat Bet is a Gurage language, spoken in several dialects found in the western Gurage Zone:*Chaha is spoken in Cheha woreda, and is the best studied of these dialects;*Ezha is spoken in Ezhana Wolene woreda,...
, Me'en, and most other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it is used for TigreFor other uses please see Tigre Tigre is a Semitic language, which, along with Tigrinya, is believed to be one of direct descendants of the extinct Ge'ez language...
, and it has traditionally been used for Blin, a Cushitic languageThe Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...
. 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 AfricaThe Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
, such as OromoOromo, also known as Afaan Oromo, Oromiffa, Afan Boran, Afan Orma, and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names , is an Afro-Asiatic language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic family. Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by more than 25 million Oromo and...
, used to be written using Ge'ez but have migrated to LatinThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
-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 languagesEthiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
. This differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
. See the articles on the individual languages for information on the pronunciation.
History and origins
The earliest inscriptions of Ethio-SemiticEthiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
in EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
date to the 9th century BC in Epigraphic South ArabianThe ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
(ESA), an AbjadAn abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
shared with contemporary kingdoms in South ArabiaSouth Arabia as a general term refers to several regions as currently recognized, in chief the Republic of Yemen; yet it has historically also included Najran, Jizan, and 'Asir which are presently in Saudi Arabia, and Dhofar presently in Oman...
. After the 7th and 6th centuries BC, however, variants of the script arose, evolving in the direction of the Ge'ez abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
(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 GuzayAkkele Guzay was a province in the interior of Eritrea until 1996, when the newly independent government of Eritrea consolidated all provinces into six regions. Akkele Guzay's population predominantly consisted of followers of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church. Traditionally being part of the...
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 boustrophedonBoustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in...
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 lambdaLambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is related to the Phoenician letter Lamed . Letters in other alphabets that stemmed from lambda include the Roman L and the Cyrillic letter El...
, somewhat). 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 coinAksumite currency was the first native currency to be issued in Africa without direct control by an outside culture like the Romans or Greeks. It was issued and circulated from the middle of the height of the Kingdom of Aksum under King Endubis around AD 270 until it began its decline in the first...
of his predecessor WazebaWazeba was a king of Axum in northeastern Africa. He is primarily known from the coins he minted during his reign. He was the first king to write the legends of his coins in Ge'ez, and the only king of Axum to use that language on his gold currency.S. C...
. Roger SchneiderRoger Schneider is a Swiss long track speed skater who participates in international competitions.-Personal records:-Career highlights:European Allround ChampionshipsNational Championships-External links:***...
{{Who|date=June 2011}} 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|date=July 2011}} 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. Kobishchanov, DanielsPeter T. Daniels is a scholar of writing systems, specializing in typology. He was co-editor of the book The World's Writing Systems , and he introduced the terms abjad and abugida as modern linguistic terms...
, and others have suggested possible influence from the Brahmic family of alphabetsThe Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
in vocalization, as they are also abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
s, and AksumThe Kingdom of Aksum or Axum, also known as the Aksumite Empire, was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period ca. 4th century BC to achieve prominence by the 1st century AD...
was an important part of major trade routes involving India and the Greco-Roman worldThe Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture,...
throughout the common era of antiquity.
According to the beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo ChurchThe Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the predominant Oriental Orthodox Christian church in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church was administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959, when it was granted its own Patriarch by Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All...
, 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. 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 of ġThe Arabic letter , commonly known in Egypt as , is one of the six letters in the Arabic alphabet not in the twenty-two akin to the Phoenician alphabet . It is the twenty second letter in the new Persian alphabet. It represents the sound or, in the case of Classical Arabic, . In Persian language...
,
{{About|the script|the language|Ge'ez language}}
{{Contains Ethiopic text}}
{{alphabet}}
Ge'ez ({{lang|gez|ግዕዝ}} {{transl|sem|Gəʿəz}}), also called Ethiopic, is a script used as an abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an abjadAn abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
used to write Ge'ezGe'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church. In AmharicAmharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
and TigrinyaTigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...
the script is often called {{transl|sem|fidäl}} ({{lang|gez|ፊደል}}), which means "script" or "alphabet".
The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, such as Amharic in EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and Tigrinya in EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
and Ethiopia. It is also used for SebatbeitSebat Bet is a Gurage language, spoken in several dialects found in the western Gurage Zone:*Chaha is spoken in Cheha woreda, and is the best studied of these dialects;*Ezha is spoken in Ezhana Wolene woreda,...
, Me'en, and most other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it is used for TigreFor other uses please see Tigre Tigre is a Semitic language, which, along with Tigrinya, is believed to be one of direct descendants of the extinct Ge'ez language...
, and it has traditionally been used for Blin, a Cushitic languageThe Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...
. 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 AfricaThe Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
, such as OromoOromo, also known as Afaan Oromo, Oromiffa, Afan Boran, Afan Orma, and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names , is an Afro-Asiatic language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic family. Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by more than 25 million Oromo and...
, used to be written using Ge'ez but have migrated to LatinThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
-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 languagesEthiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
. This differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
. See the articles on the individual languages for information on the pronunciation.
History and origins
The earliest inscriptions of Ethio-SemiticEthiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
in EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
date to the 9th century BC in Epigraphic South ArabianThe ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...
(ESA), an AbjadAn abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
shared with contemporary kingdoms in South ArabiaSouth Arabia as a general term refers to several regions as currently recognized, in chief the Republic of Yemen; yet it has historically also included Najran, Jizan, and 'Asir which are presently in Saudi Arabia, and Dhofar presently in Oman...
. After the 7th and 6th centuries BC, however, variants of the script arose, evolving in the direction of the Ge'ez abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
(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 GuzayAkkele Guzay was a province in the interior of Eritrea until 1996, when the newly independent government of Eritrea consolidated all provinces into six regions. Akkele Guzay's population predominantly consisted of followers of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church. Traditionally being part of the...
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 boustrophedonBoustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in...
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 lambdaLambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is related to the Phoenician letter Lamed . Letters in other alphabets that stemmed from lambda include the Roman L and the Cyrillic letter El...
, somewhat). 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 coinAksumite currency was the first native currency to be issued in Africa without direct control by an outside culture like the Romans or Greeks. It was issued and circulated from the middle of the height of the Kingdom of Aksum under King Endubis around AD 270 until it began its decline in the first...
of his predecessor WazebaWazeba was a king of Axum in northeastern Africa. He is primarily known from the coins he minted during his reign. He was the first king to write the legends of his coins in Ge'ez, and the only king of Axum to use that language on his gold currency.S. C...
. Roger SchneiderRoger Schneider is a Swiss long track speed skater who participates in international competitions.-Personal records:-Career highlights:European Allround ChampionshipsNational Championships-External links:***...
{{Who|date=June 2011}} 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|date=July 2011}} 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. Kobishchanov, DanielsPeter T. Daniels is a scholar of writing systems, specializing in typology. He was co-editor of the book The World's Writing Systems , and he introduced the terms abjad and abugida as modern linguistic terms...
, and others have suggested possible influence from the Brahmic family of alphabetsThe Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
in vocalization, as they are also abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
s, and AksumThe Kingdom of Aksum or Axum, also known as the Aksumite Empire, was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period ca. 4th century BC to achieve prominence by the 1st century AD...
was an important part of major trade routes involving India and the Greco-Roman worldThe Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture,...
throughout the common era of antiquity.
According to the beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo ChurchThe Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the predominant Oriental Orthodox Christian church in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church was administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959, when it was granted its own Patriarch by Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All...
, 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. 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 of ġThe Arabic letter , commonly known in Egypt as , is one of the six letters in the Arabic alphabet not in the twenty-two akin to the Phoenician alphabet . It is the twenty second letter in the new Persian alphabet. It represents the sound or, in the case of Classical Arabic, . In Persian language...
, {{Unicode and the interdental fricatives ({{transl|sem|ḏDal is a preparation of pulses which have been stripped of their outer hulls and split. It also refers to the thick stew prepared from these, an important part of Indian, Nepali, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi cuisine...
, ṯ}}) are missing, as well as South Arabian s3Samekh or Simketh is the fifteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic, representing . The Arabic alphabet, however, uses a letter based on Phoenician šin to represent ; however, that glyph takes Samekh's place in the traditional Abjadi order of the Arabic...
(Ge'ez Sawt ሠ being derived from South Arabian s2Shin literally means "Sharp" ; It is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Aramaic/Hebrew , and Arabic ....
). On the other hand, emphatic {{transl|sem|P̣ait}} ጰ, a Ge'ez innovation, is a modification of {{transl|sem|Ṣädai}} ጸ, while Pesa ፐ is based on Tawe ተ.
Thus, there are 24 correspondences of Ge'ez and the South Arabian alphabet:
| translit. |
sem|h}} |
{{transl|sem|l}} |
{{transl|sem|ḥ}} |
{{transl|sem|m}} |
sem|ś}} (SA s2) |
{{transl|sem|r}} |
{{transl|sem|s (SA s1)}} |
{{transl|sem|ḳ}} |
sem|b}} |
{{transl|sem|t}} |
{{transl|sem|ḫ}} |
{{transl|sem|n}} |
| Ge'ez |
{{unicode|ሀ}} |
{{unicode|ለ}} |
{{unicode|ሐ}} |
{{unicode|መ}} |
{{unicode|ሠ}} |
{{unicode|ረ}} |
{{unicode|ሰ}} |
{{unicode|ቀ}} |
{{unicode|በ}} |
{{unicode|ተ}} |
{{unicode|ኀ}} |
{{unicode|ነ}} |
| South Arabian |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many of the letter names are cognate with those of
PhoenicianThe Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
, and may thus be assumed for Proto-Sinaitic.
Ge'ez alphabets
There were two alphabets used to write the Ge'ez language, an abjad and later an abugida.
Ge'ez abjad
The abjad, used until ca. 330 AD, had 26 consonantal letters:
- {{transl|sem|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. 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, {{transl|sem|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 {{transl|sem|ä}} (ə), the so-called
inherent vowelAn inherent vowel is part of an abugida script. It is the vowel sound which is used with each unmarked or basic consonant symbol....
. The resulting forms are shown below in their traditional order. For some consonants, there is an eighth form for the
diphthongA diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
{{transl|sem|-wa}} or
{{transl|sem|-oa}}, and a ninth for
{{transl|sem|-yä}}.
To represent a consonant with no following vowel, for example at the end of a syllable or in a
consonant clusterIn linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
, the {{transl|sem|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:
| Consonant |
{{transl|sem|ḳ}} |
{{transl|sem|ḫ}} |
{{transl|sem|k}} |
{{transl|sem|g}} |
| ቀ |
ኀ |
ከ |
ገ |
| Labialized variant |
{{transl|sem|ḳʷ}} |
{{transl|sem|ḫʷ}} |
{{transl|sem|kʷ}} |
{{transl|sem|gʷ}} |
| ቈ |
ኈ |
ኰ |
ጐ |
Unlike the other consonants, these labiovelar ones can only be combined with 5 different vowels:
Other alphabets
The Ge'ez abugida has been adapted to several modern languages of Ethiopia. Frequently these required additional letters.
Additional letters
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
AmharicAmharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
uses all the basic consonants, plus the ones indicated below. Some of the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants are also used.
TigrinyaTigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...
has all the basic consonants, the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants except for {{transl|sem|ḫʷ}} (ኈ) plus the ones indicated below. A few of the basic consonants are falling into disuse in
EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
. See Tigrinya language#Writing system for details.
TigreFor other uses please see Tigre Tigre is a Semitic language, which, along with Tigrinya, is believed to be one of direct descendants of the extinct Ge'ez language...
uses the basic consonants except for {{transl|sem|ś}} (ሠ), {{transl|sem|ḫ}} (ኀ) and {{transl|sem|ḍ}} (ፀ). It also uses the ones indicated below. It does not use the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants.
BlinThe Blin language , Bilin or Bilen has approximately 70,000 speakers in and around the city of Keren in Eritrea. It is the only Central Cushitic language which is spoken in Eritrea....
uses the basic consonants except for {{transl|sem|ś}} (ሠ), {{transl|sem|ḫ}} (ኀ) and {{transl|sem|ḍ}} (ፀ). It also uses the ones indicated below and the Ge'ez labiovelar letter variants.
| |
sem|š}} | |sem|ḳʰ}} | |sem|ḳhw}} |
sem|v}} | |sem|č}} | [ŋʷ] |
sem|ñ}} |
sem|x}} | |sem|xʷ}} | |sem|ž}} |
sem|ǧ}} | [ŋ] | |sem|č̣}} |
| |
ሸ}} | |ቐ}} | |ቘ}} |
ቨ}} | |ቸ}} | |ⶓ}} |
ኘ}} |
ኸ}} | |ዀ}} | |ዠ}} |
ጀ}} | |ጘ}} | |ጨ}} |
| Amharic |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
| Tigrinya |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
| Tigre |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
|
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
|
|
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
| Blin |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
|
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
{{Unicode|✓}} |
Note: "v" is used for words of foreign origin except for in some Gurage languages (e.g.
cravat, 'tie' from
FrenchFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
), and "x" is pronounced "h" in Amharic.
List order
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 alphabetThe Ugaritic script is a cuneiform abjad used from around 1400 BCE for Ugaritic, an extinct Northwest Semitic language, and discovered in Ugarit , Syria, in 1928. It has 30 letters...
(which also attests the northern Semitic '–b–g–d (
abugida) order). Dillman notes 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
Ge'ez is a sacred script in the
RastafarianThe Rastafari movement or Rasta is a new religious movement that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica, which at the time was a country with a predominantly Christian culture where 98% of the people were the black descendants of slaves. Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia , as God...
religion.
Roots reggaeRoots reggae is a subgenre of reggae that deals with the everyday lives and aspirations of the artists concerned, including the spiritual side of Rastafari and with the honoring of God, called Jah by rastafarians. It also is identified with the life of the ghetto sufferer, and the rural poor...
musicians have used it in album art.
The film
500 Years Later500 Years Later is the title of an independent documentary film directed by Owen 'Alik Shahadah, written by M. K. Asante, Jr. released in 2005. It won five international film festival awards in the category of Best Documentary...
(፭፻-ዓመታት በኋላ) was the first mainstream
WesternThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
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
{{numeral systems}}
Ge'ez uses a systems of ones and tens comparable to the
HebrewThe system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.In this system, there is no notation for zero, and the numeric values for individual letters are added together...
, Arabic
abjadThe Abjad numerals are a decimal numeral system in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been used in the Arabic-speaking world since before the 8th century Arabic numerals...
and
Greek numeralsGreek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
, but unlike these systems, rather than giving numeric values to letters, it has digits derived from the
CopticThe Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is the first alphabetic script used for the Egyptian language...
letter-numbers:
| | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| × 1 |
፩ |
፪ |
፫ |
፬ |
፭ |
፮ |
፯ |
፰ |
፱ |
| × 10 |
፲ |
፳ |
፴ |
፵ |
፶ |
፷ |
፸ |
፹ |
፺ |
| × 100 |
፻ |
|
| × 10.000 |
፼ |
It has been claimed by
Georges IfrahGeorges Ifrah is a French author and historian of mathematics, especially numerals. He was formerly a teacher of mathematics....
that Ethiopian numerals were borrowed from the
Greek numeralsGreek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
in the fourth century
CECommon Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
, but this has been disputed by Ayele Bekerie of
Cornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, who claims that the Ethiopian system was developed independently.
Unicode
Ethiopic has been assigned
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
3.0 codepoints between U+1200 and U+137F (decimal 4608–4991), containing the consonantal letters for
Ge'ezGe'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
,
AmharicAmharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
, and
TigrinyaTigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...
, punctuation and numerals. Additionally, in
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
4.1, there is the supplement range from U+1380 to U+139F (decimal 4992–5023) containing letters for
SebatbeitSebat Bet is a Gurage language, spoken in several dialects found in the western Gurage Zone:*Chaha is spoken in Cheha woreda, and is the best studied of these dialects;*Ezha is spoken in Ezhana Wolene woreda,...
and tonal marks, and the extended range between U+2D80 and U+2DDF (decimal 11648–11743) containing letters needed for writing Sebatbeit,
Me'enMe'en is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Ethiopia by the Me'en people. In recent years, it has been written with the Ge'ez alphabet, but in 2007 a decision was made to use the Latin alphabet...
and
BlinThe Blin language , Bilin or Bilen has approximately 70,000 speakers in and around the city of Keren in Eritrea. It is the only Central Cushitic language which is spoken in Eritrea....
. 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-DawroGamo-Gofa-Dawro is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in the Dawro, Gamo Gofa and Wolayita Zones of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region in Ethiopia. Dialects include Gamo, Gofa, Dawro. Subdialects of Dawro are Konta and Kucha...
,
BasketoBasketo is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in the Basketo special woreda of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, which is part of Ethiopia. The speakers refer to the language as "Masketo", while their neighbors refer to it as "Basketo." It has said to consist of two dialects,...
and
GumuzGumuz is a dialect cluster spoken along the border of Ethiopia and Sudan. Most Ethiopian speakers live in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region, although a group of 1,000 live outside the town of Welkite...
.
{{Unicode chart Ethiopic}}
{{Unicode chart Ethiopic Supplement}}
{{Unicode chart Ethiopic Extended}}
{{Unicode chart Ethiopic Extended-A}}
Literature
External links
{{list of writing systems}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ge'ez Alphabet}}