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I merged in Gi'iz and did a very little research. Corrections are welcome.
Also, I kept the phrase 'main lingua franca' even though it sounds wrong to me - can there be more than one lingua franca in a region? Key45 03:00, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Was Ge'ez ever used as a primary language by any specific ethnic group? ("The peasantry" is kind of vague.) Gringo300 06:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
As far i i've read geez was orginated in eastern sudan/norther eritrea between 1000bc and 1500bc as they are discoevring evidence lately,still not confirmed but it seems its going to be confirmed soon.also the alphabets are mostly similar to the old meriote alphabets which derived from the hylographic writing system.so i would guess geez was firstly spoken by either the tegre (beja) ethnic group before tegre and tegrenya derived from that language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaya7 ( talk • contribs) 05:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
maybe Ge'ez alphabet should be a separate article? We badly need a phoneme table, the Unicode allocations are less than useful if you want to read the script... dab (ᛏ) 12:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Why is ሸ [ʃ] (š) included as part of the Ge'ez script? I've always been taught and read that ሸ along with ቸ ኘ ኸ ዠ ጀ ጨ were created to adapt the script to write Amharic.
AuralArch (
talk) 22:53, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
Someone named User:Yom has reverted all of my changes. I hope these changes can be discussed here rather than starting an editing war. yhever 21:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I didn't mean to revert your changes. I was just adding a link for an edit I made earlier. I must have been editing an older version and saved over your changes. I'll revert it and edit back in my change into the new version.
I am aware that Ge'ez and Amharic are very different languages. Perhaps the difference should be mentioned somewhere in the article. Since I am primarily and Arabist, working toward being a Semitist, I am incapable of adding the information. User:Yom likely has the expertise to do so.
IbnBatriq 19:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
The article states that Ge'ez replaced the Sabaean language, although all the evidence we have indicates a concurrence of the two languages, rather than an evolution. I'm aware of some experts arguing for rather a common origin (as opposed to an evolution), and I think the dispute should be included in the form of "The origins of the Ge'ez language and script are still controversial." (as removed by Llywrch) and some sort of qualifier (as in, "it is thought to be the descendent...."). I acknowledge my bias and the possibility of POV, however, so I will not do any such edit unilaterally.
Dr. Pankhurst (the foremost or one of the foremost Ethiopian historians) and some others agree with my view.
Yom 05:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Geez and Amharic are two different languages. But they use the same alphabet. I think geez is the former language. It is the orgin of Amharic. They have words in common and the remaining are related. If one can speak only Geez, defintely he could understand Amharic. They are generally very similar but different languages.
There are no Geez only speakers. The language used in Ethiopian Orthodox Church, however, is Geez.
Angeboy.
Wouldn't it be better if ś - l - ṣ́ would be placed on the same column under "Lateral"?
Also, I think that classifying ṣ and ṣ́ as affricates is wrong. ṣ can find its place under s and z as "emphatic" or "ejective", and ṣ́ can be placed on the same row under "Lateral". Thus, the whole row of affricates can be removed.
One more thing, why is š in the table? The only palatals in Ge‘ez are y and the vowels i and e. yhever 15:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
-was written in Hebrew in the 10th cent. (according to the highly authoritative prof David Flusser who published an annotated version a few decades ago), so its Ge'ez translation (probably a translation of the Arabic translation of the book) could not have been produced in the 5th-7th century, of course; the mistake originates from Wallis Budge p.566. I deleted it there and moved it to the next period (12-15th cent).
Just wanted to add this to the discussion, as i had previously promised to show the usage of Ge'ez in an African American film. The Ge'ez title actually appears at the end of the film, and it is also in the DVD cover. But what does it mean in Amharic?-- Halaqah 22:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
You might understand the difference but it can be very confusing the language and the script, if it is at the top, as with most articles where confusion can occur it is just much better, i dont wanna read an article to realize it is the wrong thing--- Halaqah 19:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
is this written right to left (like arabic) or left to right (like english) thanks in advance Scott Free 20:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Like English -- Halaqah 23:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
what is geez? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 189.153.111.227 ( talk) 03:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC).
Is the Ge'ez language of the liturgy comprehensible to a modern Amharic or Tigrinya speaker who has not specifically learned Ge'ez? -- 85.179.175.225 00:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
The article states that this is no longer a spoken language yet mentions it is used inthe liturgy of the church making the point that sermons are done in the local common language implying that the scripture or the spoken liturgy would be in Ge'ez. Which is it? a written only language or a religious use only language? It seems counter productive for a church to have scripture and tradition in a language no one can communicate to a convert or youth coming up in the church. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.6.228 ( talk) 23:20, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
The earlier editor raised a good point, "It seems counter productive for a church to have scripture and tradition in a language no one can communicate to a convert or youth coming up in the church." For many, the traditions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church have put more emphasis on continuity, the importance of the clergy, and the glory of tradition than on understanding by individuals. This is not uniform across the EOC, but helps explain the continued importance of the language, even if it is poorly understood. Pete unseth ( talk) 00:32, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
I removed the portion of this article saying that the lateral fricative is "kept as a distinct phoneme in no other Semitic daughter language," since the lateral fricative actually is preserved in South Arabian languages such as Soqotri. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.230.236 ( talk) 20:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I typed up a summary of the language and put it in the external links but it was deleted as "spam" on 22:25, 22 July 2008. Can anyone justify this? The move seems wholly non-sequitor to me.
English-speaking students would benefit from such exterior links.
Does anyone have any links to pages on Ge'ez as a language (grammars, dictionaries, texts) in English OR Amharic or any other language (something in German, perhaps?).
Epigraphist ( talk) 15:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
I have deleted these links from the article for these reasons:
If you want more information on what are proper links please review the article on External links Mesfin ( talk) 20:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
You're being petty and you're doing a disservice to English-reading students of Classical Ethiopic. I'm certain that I'm more of an authority on the language than you are, good Sir. I study under Dr. Grover Hudson, long-time student of Dr. Wolf Leslau, neither of whom I am certain you know. And the blog which you so hastily slander is in fact concerning my scholarly work on the language. Are you some Afrocentrist out to exclude me from this work because of my skin color?
And your English shows innumerable signs of being a second language. You may wish to spend some time on that. And so where exactly are you at the professional conferences for these things? No one I've ever met or heard of in relation to this field matches your description. The Ethiopians who come have better English and would not be so petty about their edits. It is perhaps ironic that you are the one whose arguements amount to conflict of interest.
Epigraphist ( talk) 21:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Where does the latin transliteration (used on this and similar pages) come from? The use of ə and ä looks quite idiosyncratic to me... -- megA ( talk) 23:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Somebody should decide how the vowels are to be transcribed. In the grammar sections, the sixth order vowel is transcribed with ǝ; in the text example it's i. In the phonology section, two of the vowels are i. -- MikeG (talk) 19:09, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I have made changes in the phonology section, I think now it agrees with text examples. The seven orders are now a u i ā e ǝ o, their phonemic values a u i ā e ɨ o. Length is only phonemic in a versus 'ā'. Msanzl ( talk) 11:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I copied this from the
Gez(a locale in France), after I created a redirect from there to here.--
Jondel (
talk) 06:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
According to an article in the Jerusalem Post on November 3, 2009, Gez is the language of Ethiopian Jews, and used in prayer and in scheduled public celebrations. Reference :
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256799054655&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull . (We could use an additional article on this subject.)
According to the "ethnologue" web site, an encyclopedia of languages, Gez is an "extinct" language of Ethiopia. (Have all the Gez-speaking Ethiopian Jews emigrated to Israel?) Reference:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gez
Possibly redirect to the Wikipedia article on the "Ge'ez" language.
=
Could we add a reference to Ethiopian philosophers Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat? Seems to me they would be well worth a mention in the History and literature section.
The difficulty here is that there has been some dispute about authenticity. It was argued by Carlo Conti Rossini and Eugen Mittwoch that the work was a forgery by an Italian priest, Giusto d'Urbino. That was in the 1920s and 1930s, and my impression is that scholarly interest pretty much dried up at that point. More recently, though, Claude Sumner argued in the 1970s, on stylistic and other grounds, that it was not a forgery after all (or at least that the person alleged to have forged it could not have done so). But his stuff seems to be pretty obscure, and I'm not sure if there's been any back-and-forth since then. But there is some work out there now operating on the assumption that Sumner is correct. Sumner's argument (and references to other stuff) is contained in Ethiopian Philosophy, vol. II: The Treatise of Zara Yaecob and Walda Hewat: Text and Authorship, Addis Ababa: Commercial Printing Press, 1976. I have not investigated it terribly closely, though at present I'm satisfied by it. Here is a brief summary of his reasoning and conclusions from his Classical Ethiopian Philosophy (1985).
Perhaps someone (more scholarly than myself) has a better understanding of this? And if no one has anything to say about this in the next week or so, I'll add a reference to those authors. bhritchie ( talk) 03:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Don't delete the pronunciation unless you have something better to replace it with. It is not at all obvious how Ge'ez should be pronounced, and it's obscure enough that very few of our readers will have ever come across it. — kwami ( talk) 00:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
The website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has pictures of about 12 (out of 142) beautiful pages of The Harp of Praise, a late 17th-century illuminated prayer book from the Lasta region of Ethiopia, in the Museum's collection. The script is Ethiopic and the language presumably is Ge'ez, as that was and is the language of Christian worship in Ethiopia. There is also a 19th century manuscript prayer book with travel case. But the article leaves off at the 16th century.
I realize that without proper documentation that they are in Ge'ez, these documents cannot legitimately be included in the article. But I'm putting them here in case someone else can find such evidence.
However, the Met website does show (parts of) two manuscripts
it describes as being in Ge'ez:
I'm adding these to the last paragraph of Ge'ez language#History and literature, right after the British Museum holdings.
-- Thnidu ( talk) 02:25, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I have updated this article to use the ‘correct’ character for representing the glottal stop, ie the ʻOkina, within the body of the text. I confirmed this is the correct character by consulting Bright’s ‘The World’s Writing Systems’ (p. 98). However, it occurs to me that ideally this should be also reflected in the title of the article as well (as with the ʻOkina example). Of course this is a typographic quibble, but IMO it is an important one. pablohoney ( talk) 22:05, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
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I have reverted the reference to obsolete scholarship that proposed that Syrian monks may have been responsible for the Ethiopic Bible translation. We need a seperate article on the Ethiopic Bible - and I am working on it - but in the meanwhile it should be enough to note that the theory of Syrian origins has been comprehensively relinquished by all current scholarship. The Aksumite translators of the 4th (and maybe 5th) centuries, worked solely from Greek for their New Testament; and most likely solely from Greek for their Old testamant and pseudopigrapha too. And they did it all on their own - with no assistance from outsiders. By the time of the Nine Saints (late 5th, early 6th, centuries) the whole Bible, and a great deal more, was already translated. TomHennell ( talk) 12:41, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
If the word "Ethiopic" used in scholarship like this, then the alternate name should be mentioned somewhere in the article body, as well as the lead. Most of the uses of the word "Ethiopic" in our article are with reference to a script or a church, but most of the usage in the page overall is in source titles that appear to be referring to the language itself. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 12:47, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
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Geʽez is not extinct, it's dead. The infobox says something along the lines of "it's no longer used natively, but still has liturgical use." That's the definition of a dead language, not an extinct one. Unfortunately, I don't know how to change information in infoboxes, so if someone else could do it, it would be much appreciated!
User.name.here ( talk) 00:12, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Geez. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 21#Geez until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 09:49, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
Some sources say it was first recorded at ̥5th century BC while others say 4th Cent. CE — Preceding unsigned comment added by SonOfAxum ( talk • contribs) 05:29, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Wouldn’t it be good to include this info! SonOfAxum ( talk) 14:54, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Under the first-level heading Phonology, second-level heading Consonants, third-level heading Phonemes of Geʽez, there is table of consonants with IPA pronounciation symbols. The cell for emphatic x dental contains a "?", and the cells for voiceless x plain and voiceless x labialized contain superscript "?"s by the "chi" symbol. Are these meant to be glottal stops?
Basic information to add to this article: the etymology of the word "Geʽez." 173.88.246.138 ( talk) 02:48, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
The article at present is a bit inconsistent on orthography—probably because editors have drawn from multiple sources, & the Western academic study of Gəʕz has itself been inconsistent in choice of Romanisation. I wanted to go through and normalise such that ቅ is always ‹q› or always ‹ḳ›, but I wasn't sure what to use as a standard. One option would be to follow the recent Tropper/Hasselbach-Andee grammar, which uses basically a comparative Semitic Romanisation. My thinking is that this is a nice choice because that grammar is the most likely to be cited in academic scholarship in coming years. (There are of course other, earlier grammars we could use instead.) It also matches Wolf Leslau's two dictionaries of Gəʕz, which at present are those a reader is most likely to use, & the TraCES edition of Dillmann's lexicon. Another good choice would be the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica Romanisation, which is more common among linguists working on modern Ethiopian/Eritrean Semitic languages, & appears in several other articles on Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't have a standard (as we do for, eg, Arabic), but I think that we ought to be consistent within the article. (We would probably need to get a guideline passed to be consistent across articles on Wikipedia.) My inclination is to bring this in line with the Tropper/Hasselbach-Andee/Leslau/TraCES Romanisation. That would mean that ቅ is ‹q›, ፅ is ‹ḍ›, first order is ‹a›, fourth order is ‹ā›, & sixth order is ‹ə› (or nothing). This is not my preferred Romanisation, but I think it's the one that makes the most sense. Does anyone have an opinion? Pathawi ( talk) 01:47, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
There's been a short back-&-forth on whether Gəʕz originated in Eritrea, or in both Eritrea & Ethiopia. The most recent edit draws on the primary evidence, which is definitely very interesting stuff. However, it's worth holding in mind that our job isn't to interpret the evidence: We use secondary sources, tertiary sources when need be, & primary sources only for what they directly say or as interpreted thru secondary sources WP:PST. I hope that this points toward a way to resolve this more easily. Pathawi ( talk) 14:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)