The Ge'ez language (or Gi'iz language) is an ancient language that developed in the Ethiopian Highlands of the Horn of Africa as the language of the peasantry. It later became the language of the Ethiopian imperial court; it is currently the language of use in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Church. As with any complex, emergent concept, language is somewhat resistant to definition. ... This article needs cleanup. ... The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. ... The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahido Church is one of the Oriental Orthodox churches. ...

Today Ge'ez remains the main language used in the worship services of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, though Amharic (the main lingua franca of modern Ethiopia) may be used for sermons. The Ge'ez writing system, (or 'Fidel' as it is known in Ethiopia), forms the basis for most scripts used for writing the various languages of Ethiopia. A sacred language is a language, frequently a dead language, that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life. ... The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahido Church is one of the Oriental Orthodox churches. ... The Beta Israel (or House of Israel), known by outsiders by the Ethiopian origin. ... This is a list of bodies that regulate languages. ... ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ... SIL International is a non-profit, faith-based, scientific organization with the main purpose to study, develop and document lesser-known languages for the purpose of expanding linguistic knowledge, promoting world literacy and aiding minority language development. ... As with any complex, emergent concept, language is somewhat resistant to definition. ... This list of languages is alphabetical by English name. ... Amharic (አማርኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in Northern Central Ethiopia, where it is the official language. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. ...

Ge'ez is also still in use by the Beta Israel Jewish community of Ethiopia for their scriptures and liturgy. The Beta Israel (or House of Israel), known by outsiders by the Ethiopian origin. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... From the Greek word λειτουργια, which can be transliterated as leitourgia, meaning the work of the people, a liturgy comprises a prescribed religious ceremony, according to the traditions of a particular religion; it may be refer to, or include, an elaborate formal ritual (such as the Catholic Mass), a daily...

The language has been assigned the ISO 639 code gez and the SIL code GEE. ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ... SIL International is a non-profit, faith-based, scientific organization with the main purpose to study, develop and document lesser-known languages for the purpose of expanding linguistic knowledge, promoting world literacy and aiding minority language development. ...

History

The origins of the Ge'ez alphabet and the language are still controversial; as Scott Munro-hays notes, "the arguments advanced for the origins of the Ge'ez script would fill a small book." The earliest known inscriptions in Ge'ez are dated to the 3rd century AD in South Arabian script which lacked vowels. About the time of king Ezana (4th century AD), the South Arabian script was modified to include vowels, 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. An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters—basic written symbols—each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Ezana of Axum was ruler of the Axumite Kingdom from about 320 to 350 AD. Ezana succeeded his father Ella Amida while still a youth and his mother, Sofya served as regent. ...

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. Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Carl Richard Lepsius (December 23, 1810 - July 10, 1884) was a German professor of Egyptology and linguist. ... The Republic of India is the second most populous country in the world, with a population of more than one billion, and is the seventh largest country by geographical area. ... Brahmi refers to the pre-modern members of the Brahmic family of scripts, attested from the 5th century BC. The best known inscriptions in Brahmi are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka, c. ... The Kharoṣṭhī script, also known as the Gāndhārī script, is an ancient alphabetic script used by the Gandhara culture of historic northwest India to write the Gandhari and Sanskrit languages (the Gandhara kingdom was located along the present-day border between Afghanistan and Pakistan between the Indus River and the...

The Ge'ez language is generally considered a South Semitic language. It has replaced the Sabaean language and alphabet (although that was still used up to around 8th century AD). Ge'ez was in turn replaced around 13th century AD by the Amharic language in the south and the Tigrigna language in the north. The Tigre language also uses the Ge'ez alphabet and is more closely related to Ge'ez then either Amharic or Tigrigna. The Semitic languages are the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the only family of this group spoken in Asia. ... Amharic (አማርኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in Northern Central Ethiopia, where it is the official language. ... Tigrigna (or ትግሪኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in Eritrea, where it is the official language, and in parts of Ethiopia and Israel. ... Tigre is a Semitic language descended from Geez and is closely related to Tigrinya and Amharic. ...

Ge'ez writing system

Genesis 29.11–16 in Ge'ez

The word Ge'ez is also applied to the abugida which is used to write the language. The Amharic in Ethiopia and Tigrigna in Eritrea and Ethiopia use modified forms of the Ge'ez abugida. Other languages in the Horn of Africa were also historically written using Ge'ez, such as Oromo language and Somali, but these have generally migrated to Latin-based orthographies. This article is about Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible. ... An alphasyllabary or abugida (a term coined by Peter T. Daniels) is a writing system whose basic signs denote consonants with an inherent vowel and where consistent modifications of the basic sign indicate other following vowels than the inherent one (or, in some cases, the lack of a vowel, for... Amharic (አማርኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in Northern Central Ethiopia, where it is the official language. ... This article needs cleanup. ... Tigrigna (or ትግሪኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in Eritrea, where it is the official language, and in parts of Ethiopia and Israel. ... This article is about the African nation. ... The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. ... The Oromo are an African ethnic group (pejoratively termed Galla) found in Ethiopia and to a lesser extent Kenya. ... The Somali language is a member of the Cushitic languages. ...

Ge'ez (or "Ethiopic") has been assigned Unicode 3.0 codepoints U+1200 – U+137F (decimal 4608–4991), and given the "Supplemnt" range U+1380 - U+ 139F (decimal 4992-5023 ) and "Extended" range U+2D80 - U+2DDF (decimal 11648-11743) in Unicode 4.1: In computing, Unicode is the international standard whose goal is to provide the means to encode the text of every document people want to store in computers. ... In computing, Unicode is the international standard whose goal is to provide the means to encode the text of every document people want to store in computers. ...

References

• David Diringer. The Alphabet, A Key To The History of Mankind. 1968.
• Yuri M. Kobishchanov. Axum (Joseph W. Michels, editor; Lorraine T. Kapitanoff, translator). University Park, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1979. ISBN 0271005319
• Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. ISBN 0748601066

See also

• Axumite Kingdom

The Axumite Kingdom, also known as the Aksum Kingdom, was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa, growing from circa the 5th century BC to become an important trading nation by the 1st century AD. It converted to Christianity in 325 or 328 (various sources). ...

External links

• Ethnologue report for Ge'ez (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=GEE).
• A chart (http://syllabary.sourceforge.net/Ethiopic/Geez.html) correlating IPA values to the Ge'ez syllabary symbols.
• A chart (http://www.ancientscripts.com/ethiopic.html) of the Ge'ez syllabary.
• Unicode assignments (http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/ethiopic.html) for Ethiopic characters.
• Overview  (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ethiopic.htm) of the language.