| Also Known As: Giiz,Ethiopic,Ge'ez,Ancient Ethiopic,Geez
Description:
Ge'ez (ግዕዝ, Gəʿəz, IPA: [ɡɨʕɨz]; also transliterated Gi'iz, and less accurately referred to as Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court.
Today Ge'ez remains only as the main language used in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, and also the Beta Israel Jewish community. However, in Ethiopia Amharic (the main lingua franca of modern Ethiopia) or other local languages, and in Eritrea and Tigray Region in Ethiopia Tigrinya may be used for sermons.
also transliterated as ǎ, û, î, â, ê, ě, ô.
Ge'ez consonants have a triple opposition between voiceless, voiced, and ejective (or emphatic) obstruents. The Proto-Semitic "emphasis" in Ge'ez has been generalized to include emphatic p̣. Ge'ez has phonologized labiovelars, descending from Proto-Semitic biphonemes. Ge'ez ś ሠ Sawt (in Amharic, also called śe-nigūś, i.e. the se letter used for spelling the word nigūś "king") is reconstructed as descended from a Proto-Semitic..... full article at Wikipedia |
