Ge'ez alphabet

Encyclopedia : G : GE : GEE : Ge'ez alphabet

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History of the Alphabet
Middle Bronze Age 19–15th c. BC Canaanite-Phoenician 14th c. BC *Aramaic 9th c. BC **Brāhmī & Indic, 6th c. BC ***Tibetan 7th c. ***Khmer/Javanese, 9th c. **Hebrew 3rd c. BC **Syriac 2nd c. BC **Din Dabireh 3rd c. **Arabic 4th c. *Greek 9th c. BC **Etruscan 8th c. BC ***Latin 7th c. BC ***Runes 2nd c. **Gothic 4th c. **Armenian 405 **Glagolitic 862 **Cyrillic 10th c. *Samaritan 6th c. BC *Iberian 6th c. BC South Arabian 9th c. BC *Ge'ez 5–6th c. BC
Meroitic 3rd c. BC
Complete genealogy

Note: This article contains .

Ge'ez (ግዕዝ Gəʿəz) is an abugida script which was originally developed to write Ge'ez, a Semitic language. In languages which use it, eg Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is called Fidäl (ፊደል), which means script or alphabet.

The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write other languages, usually Semitic ones. The most widespread use is for 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 is traditionally used for Blin, a Cushitic language. 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 pronuncation.
• In order to view the Ge'ez characters, you will need a Unicode Ge'ez font, such as [GF Zemen Unicode].

History and origins

Ge'ez is descended from the South Arabian alphabet. The details of the process of derivation, however, are controversial. As Stuart Munro-Hays notes, "the arguments advanced for the origins of the Ge'ez script would fill a small book."

Ge'ez has 26 basic consonant signs. 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 s (Ge'ez Saut ሠ being derived from South Arabian š ). 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 (corresponding glyphs of the Phoenician alphabet are shown where extant):

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

The earliest known inscriptions in Ge'ez are dated to the 5th to 6th centuries BCE in the city of Matara (Mäṭära), located in present day Eritrea. The Ge'ez abugida was devised in the early first millennium, and the first vocalized texts (i.e. including vowel forms of the letters) appear about the time of king Ezana (4th century), and some writers credit him with this change. However, Roger Schneider has pointed to anomalies in the known inscriptions which suggest that this vocalization occurred at an earlier time, and that Ezana was consciously employing an archaic style during his reign.

Likewise, the origins for the method of vocalizing the Ge'ez script is unclear. Some writers assume that the Greek alphabet served as the model. Yuri Kobishchanov has embraced the theories of W. Jones and Karl Richard Lepsius, who believed that the vocalization was patterned after Indian models. Kobishchanov cites a 1915 paper by A. Grohmann, which emphasized the similarities between Ge'ez and the ancient Indian Brahmi and Kharoshti alphabets.

Signs for the Ge'ez language

Basic signs

There are 26 basic consonant signs:

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

Syllable signs

The Ge'ez script is an abugida: each symbol represents a consonant+vowel combination, and the symbols are organized in groups of similar symbols on the basis of both the consonant and the vowel.

Ge'ez is written from left to right across the page.

In Ge'ez, each consonant can be combined with seven vowels:

ä, u, i, a, e, ə, o

For each consonant in an abugida, there is a basic or unmarked symbol which represents that consonant followed by a default vowel, called the inherent vowel. For the Ge'ez script, the inherent vowel is /ä/, the first column in the table. For the other vowels, the basic consonant symbol is modified in consistent ways.

In the table below, the rows of the table show the consonants in the traditional order. The columns show the seven vowels, also in the traditional order. A consonant can be described, for example, as being "in the fifth order", meaning that it is of the form which is fifth in this traditional order of vowels. For some letters, there is an eighth modification expressing a diphthong -wa or -oa, and a ninth expressing -yä.

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

Labiovelar letter variants

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

Basic sign
	ቀ	ኀ	ከ	ገ
Labialized variant
	ቈ	ኈ	ኰ	ጐ

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

Modifications for other languages

Additional letters

Some letters have variants for use in languages other than Ge'ez.

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

Symbols used in modern languages

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 ḫ^w (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 languagess (e.g. cravat, 'tie' from French), and "x" is pronounced "h" in Amharic.

List order

For Ge'ez, Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, the usual list order is called Halehame. For the basic signs it is as given elsewhere on this page. Where the labiovelar variants are used, these come immediately after the basic signs, followed by other variants. In Tigrinya, for example, the signs based on ከ come in this order: ከ, ኰ, ኸ, ዀ.

In Blin, the order of the signs is slightly different.

Numerals

>

Numeral systems
Western Arabic Eastern Arabic Indian family Thai Arabic Abjad Hindu-Arabic Armenian Babylonian Brahmi Chinese Cyrillic	Egyptian Etruscan Ge'ez Greek Attic Ionian Hebrew Japanese Khmer Korean Mayan Roman
Numeral system topics
Positional systems
Base: 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 24, 30, 32, 36, 60, 64, [ ]

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 separate numeral symbols that are derived from the Greek letter-numbers:

Unicode

Ge'ez (or "Ethiopic") has been assigned Unicode 3.0 codepoints between U+1200 and U+137F (decimal 4608–4991), containing the basic syllable signs 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 syllables for Sebatbeit and tonal marks, and the "Extended" range between U+2D80 and U+2DDF (decimal 11648–11743) containing syllable signs needed for writing Sebatbeit, Me'en and Blin.

Literature

• Gabriella F. Scelta, The Comparative Origin and Usage of the Ge’ez writing system of Ethiopia (2001) [link]

External links

• [omniglot.com]
• [ancientscripts.com]
• [Chart] correlating IPA values for Amharic to the Ge’ez syllabary symbols.
• Unicode specification
• * [Ethiopic]
• * [Ethiopic Supplement]
• * [Ethiopic Extended]
• [Unicode assignments for Ethiopic characters]
• [Ethiopic ordered lists]

Special characters

 

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