Geʽez

This article is about the language. For the writing script, see Geʽez script.
Geʽez
ግዕዝ Gəʽ(ə)z
Pronunciation[ˈɡɨʕ(ɨ)z]
Native toEritrea, Ethiopia
ExtinctBefore 10th century to 14th century[1][2]
Remains in use as a liturgical language.[3]
Afro-Asiatic
Geʽez script, Ancient South Arabian script
Official status
Official language in
Liturgical language of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Eritrean Catholic Church,[3] Ethiopian Catholic Church, and Beta Israel[6]
Language codes
ISO 639-2gez
ISO 639-3gez
Glottologgeez1241

Geʽez (/ˈɡiːɛz/[7] or /ɡiːˈɛz/;[8] ግዕዝ Gəʽ(ə)z[9] IPA: [ˈɡɨʕ(ɨ)z] ⓘ, and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from Abyssinia, what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Today, Geʽez is used as the main liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, and the Beta Israel Jewish community.

Hawulti Obelisk is an ancient pre-Aksumite obelisk located in Matara, Eritrea. The monument dates to the early Aksumite period and bears an example of the ancient Geʽez script.

In one study, Tigre was found to have a 71% lexical similarity to Geʽez, while Tigrinya had a 68% lexical similarity to Geʽez, followed by Amharic at 62%.[10] Most linguists believe that Geʽez does not constitute a common ancestor of modern Ethio-Semitic languages but became a separate language early on from another hypothetical unattested common language.[11][12][13]

  1. ^ Gragg 1997b, p. 242, "Ge‘ez disappeared as a spoken language probably some time before the tenth century CE."
  2. ^ De Lacy O'Leary, 2000 Comparative grammar of the Semitic languages. Routledge. p. 23.
  3. ^ a b Chain 1909, "No longer in popular use, Geʽez has always remained the language of the Church".
  4. ^ "Classification of Ethio Semitic languages according to Hudson 2013". Research Gate. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
  5. ^ "Title=Issies in mapping and classifying the Semitic languages of Ethiopia". Tekabe Legesse Felake. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
  6. ^ "They read the Bible in Geez" (Leaders and Religion of the Beth Israel); "after each passage, recited in Geez, the translation is read in Kailina" (Festivals). [PER], publication date 1901–1906.
  7. ^
  8. ^
  9. ^
    • Lambdin 1978, p. 400: Ge‘z
    • Leslau 1989, p. 209: gəʽəz
    • Leslau 1987, p. 175: gəʿz
    • Cohen 1921, p. 217, «il vaut mieux préciser en éthiopien classique ou employer le nom indigène; celui-ci est ግእዝ፡, c’est-à-dire en prononciation restituée gə‘əz ou gə‘z, et gəəz dans la prononciation abyssine actuelle»
      [it is worth it to be precise using Classical Ethiopic or the indigenous name, which is ግእዝ፡, that is (in reconstructed pronunciation gə‘əz or gə‘z, and gəəz {i.e. IPA [ˈgɨʔɨz] with a glottal stop} in today's Abyssinian pronunciation]
  10. ^ Bender, M. L. (May 1971). "The Languages of Ethiopia: A New Lexicostatistic Classification and Some Problems of Diffusion". Anthropological Linguistics. 13 (5): 173. JSTOR 30029540.
  11. ^ Connell, Dan; Killion, Tom (2010). Historical Dictionary of Eritrea (2nd ed.). Scarecrow. p. 508. ISBN 978-0-8108-7505-0.
  12. ^ Haarmann, Harald (2002). Lexikon der untergegangenen Sprachen [Lexicon of extinct languages] (in German) (2nd ed.). C. H. Beck. p. 76. ISBN 978-3-406-47596-2.
  13. ^ Amsalu Aklilu, Kuraz Publishing Agency, ጥሩ የአማርኛ ድርሰት እንዴት ያለ ነው! p. 42
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.