fbpx
Wikipedia

Amharic

Amharic (/æmˈhærɪk/[4][5][6] or /ɑːmˈhɑːrɪk/;[7] (Amharic: አማርኛ), Amarəñña, IPA: [amarɨɲːa] (listen)) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns of Ethiopia.[8]

Amharic
አማርኛ (Amarəñña)
Amharic script, fidäl, from Ge'ez script
Pronunciation[amarɨɲːa]
Native toEthiopia
EthnicityAmhara
Native speakers
32,000,000[1] (2022)
58,000,000 total[1]
Afro-Asiatic
Geʽez script (Amharic syllabary)
Ge'ez Braille
Signed Amharic[2]
Official status
Official language in
 Ethiopia[3]
Regulated byImperial Academy (former)
Language codes
ISO 639-1am
ISO 639-2amh
ISO 639-3amh
Glottologamha1245
Linguasphere12-ACB-a
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions.[9] It has over 32,400,000 mother-tongue speakers and more than 25,100,000 second language speakers making the total number of speakers over 57,500,000.[10] Amharic is the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo). Amharic is also the second largest Semitic language in the world (after Arabic).[11][12]

Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script.[13] The segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units is called an abugida (አቡጊዳ).[14] The graphemes are called fidäl (ፊደል), which means "script", "alphabet", "letter", or "character".

There is no universally agreed-upon Romanization of Amharic into Latin script. The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specialising in Ethiopian Semitic languages.

Background

Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia, language of the courts, the language of trade and everyday communications and of the military since the late 12th century. The Amhara nobles supported the Zagwe prince Lalibela in his power struggle against his brothers which led him to make Amharic Lessana Negus as well as fill the Amhara nobles in the top positions of his Kingdom.[15] While the appellation of "language of the king" (Ge'ez: ልሳነ ንጉሥ "Lisane Negus")/(Amharic: የንጉሥ ቋንቋ "Ye-Negus QwanQwa") and its use in the royal court are otherwise traced to the Amhara Emperor Yekuno Amlak.[16][17] It is one of the official languages of Ethiopia, together with Oromo, Somali, Afar, and Tigrinya. Amharic is an Afro-Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Geʽez, or Ethiopic, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church; Amharic is written in a slightly modified form of the alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language. There are 33 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable. Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia.[18][19][3][20][21] The 2007 census reported that Amharic was spoken by 21.6 million native speakers in Ethiopia.[22] More recent sources state the number of first-language speakers in 2018 as nearly 32 million, with another 25 million second-language speakers in Ethiopia.[1] Additionally, 3 million emigrants outside of Ethiopia speak the language.[citation needed] Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic.[23][citation needed] In Washington DC, Amharic became one of the six non-English languages in the Language Access Act of 2004, which allows government services and education in Amharic.[24] Furthermore, Amharic is considered a holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide.

Linguistic development theory

According to Donald Levine, the Afro-Asiatic language family likely arose either in the eastern Sahara or in southwestern Ethiopia. Early Afro-Asiatic populations speaking proto-Semitic, proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic languages would have diverged by the fourth or fifth millennium BC. Shortly afterwards, the proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic groups would have settled in the Ethiopian highlands, with the proto-Semitic speakers crossing the Sinai Peninsula into Asia Minor. A later return movement of peoples from South Arabia would have introduced the Semitic languages to Ethiopia.[25] Based on archaeological evidence, the presence of Semitic speakers in the territory date to some time before 500 BC.[26] Linguistic analysis suggests the presence of Semitic languages in Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC. Levine indicates that by the end of that millennium, the core inhabitants of Greater Ethiopia would have consisted of swarthy Caucasoid ("Afro-Mediterranean") agropastoralists speaking Afro-Asiatic languages of the Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic branches.[25]

Other scholars such as Messay Kebede and Daniel E. Alemu argue that migration across the Red Sea was defined by reciprocal exchange, if it even occurred at all, and that Ethio-Semitic-speaking ethnic groups should not be characterized as foreign invaders.[27][28]

Amharic is a South Ethio-Semitic language, along with Gurage, Harari, and others.[29][30][31] Some time before the 1st century AD, the North and South branches of Ethio-Semitic diverged.[31][32] Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Ethio-Semitic language and eventually absorbed the Semitic population.[33][34][35][36] Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum.[37][38] The northernmost South Ethio-Semitic speakers, or the proto-Amhara, remained in constant contact with their North Ethio-Semitic neighbors, evidenced by linguistic analysis and oral traditions.[39][40] A 7th century southward shift of the center of gravity of the Kingdom of Aksum and the ensuing integration and Christianization of the proto-Amhara also resulted in a high prevalence of Geʽez sourced lexicon in Amharic.[41][42][43] Some time after the 9th century AD, Amharic diverged from its closest relative, Argobba, probably due to religious differences as the Argobba adopted Islam.[44]

In 1983, Lionel Bender proposed that Amharic may have been constructed as a pidgin as early as the 4th century AD to enable communication between Aksumite soldiers speaking Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages, but this hypothesis has not garnered widespread acceptance. The preservation in Old Amharic of VSO word order and gutturals typical of Semitic languages, Cushitic influences shared with other Ethio-Semitic languages (especially those of the Southern branch), and the number of geographically distinct Cushitic languages that have influenced Amharic at different points in time (e.g. Oromo influence beginning in the 16th century) support a natural evolution of Amharic from a Proto-Ethio-Semitic language with considerable Cushitic influences (similar to Gurage, Tigrinya, etc.).[45][29][46]

Phonology

The Amharic ejective consonants correspond to the Proto-Semitic "emphatic consonants." In the Ethiopianist tradition they are often transcribed with a dot below the letter.

 
The vowels of Amharic on a vowel chart.[47] Vowels in parentheses are allophones of /ɨ/ and /ə/.
Vowels[47]
Front Central Back
High i ɨ ⟨ə⟩ u
Mid e ə ⟨ä⟩ o
Low a

The notation of central vowels in the Ethiopianist tradition is shown in angled brackets.

Allophones

The voiced bilabial plosive /b/ is phonetically realized as a voiced labial approximant /β̞/ medially between sonorants in non-geminated form. The affricate ejective /t͡sʼ/ is also heard as a fricative ejective [], but is mostly heard as the affricate sound [t͡sʼ]. The rhotic consonant is realized as a trill when geminated and a tap otherwise. The closed central unrounded vowel (Romanized "ə" | IPA /ɨ/) and mid-central vowel (Romanized "ä" | IPA /ə/) are generally fronted to [ɪ] and [ɛ], respectively, following palatal consonants, and generally retracted and rounded to [ʊ] and [ɔ], respectively, following labialized velar consonants.[47]

Examples

Ge'ez Romanized Gloss IPA
ከበሮ käbäro drum β̞əɾo
ብር bərr Ethiopian birr r
ይህ yəh this jɪh
የማን yäman whose jɛman
ውስጥ wəsṭ in wʊst'
ወንድ wänd man wɔnd

Writing system

 
The Ethiopic (or Ge'ez) writing system is visible on the side of this Ethiopian Airlines Fokker 50: it reads "Ethiopia's": የኢትዮጵያ ye-ʾityop̣p̣ya.

The Amharic script is an abugida, and the graphemes of the Amharic writing system are called fidäl.[48] It is derived from a modification of the Ge'ez script.[13] Each character represents a consonant+vowel sequence, but the basic shape of each character is determined by the consonant, which is modified for the vowel. Some consonant phonemes are written by more than one series of characters: /ʔ/, /s/, /tsʼ/, and /h/ (the last one has four distinct letter forms). This is because these fidäl originally represented distinct sounds, but phonological changes merged them.[48] The citation form for each series is the consonant+ä form, i.e. the first column of the fidäl. The Amharic script is included in Unicode, and glyphs are included in fonts available with major operating systems.

 
A modern usage of Amharic: the label of a Coca-Cola bottle. The script reads ኮካ-ኮላ (koka-kola).

Alphasyllabary

Chart of Amharic fidels[49]
  ä/e
[ə]
u i a ē ə
[ɨ], ∅
o ʷä/ue
[ʷə]
ʷi/ui ʷa/ua ʷē/uē ʷə
[ʷɨ/ū]
h /h/  
l /l/    
/h/    
m /m/    
ś /s/    
r /r/    
s /s/    
š /ʃ/    
q /kʼ/
b /b/    
v /β/    
t /t/    
č /tʃ/    
/h/
n /n/    
ñ /ɲ/    
ʼ /ʔ/    
k /k/
x /h/
w /w/  
ʽ /ʔ/  
z /z/    
ž /ʒ/    
y /j/  
d /d/    
ǧ /dʒ/    
g /ɡ/
/tʼ/    
č̣ /tʃʼ/    
/pʼ/    
/tsʼ/    
ṣ́ /tsʼ/  
f /f/    
p /p/    
  ä/e
[ə]
u i a ē ə
[ɨ], ∅
o ʷ/ue
[ʷə/ū]
ʷi/ui ʷa/ua ʷē/uē ʷə
[ʷɨ/ū]

Gemination

As in most other Ethiopian Semitic languages, gemination is contrastive in Amharic. That is, consonant length can distinguish words from one another; for example, alä 'he said', allä 'there is'; yǝmätall 'he hits', yǝmmättall 'he will be hit'. Gemination is not indicated in Amharic orthography, but Amharic readers typically do not find this to be a problem. This property of the writing system is analogous to the vowels of Arabic and Hebrew or the tones of many Bantu languages, which are not normally indicated in writing. Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu, who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform, indicated gemination in his novel Love to the Grave by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice is rare.

Punctuation

Punctuation includes the following:

section mark
word separator
full stop (period)
comma
semicolon
colon
preface colon (introduces speech from a descriptive prefix)
question mark
paragraph separator

Grammar

Simple Amharic sentences

One may construct simple Amharic sentences by using a subject and a predicate. Here are a few simple sentences:[50]

ኢትዮጵያ

ʾItyop̣p̣ya

Ethiopia

አፍሪካ

ʾAfrika

Africa

ውስጥ

wǝsṭ

in

ናት

nat

is

ኢትዮጵያ አፍሪካ ውስጥ ናት

ʾItyop̣p̣ya ʾAfrika wǝsṭ nat

{Ethiopia} {Africa} {in} {is}

'Ethiopia is in Africa.'

ልጁ

Lǝǧ-u

the boy

ተኝቷል

täññǝtʷall.

asleep is

ልጁ ተኝቷል

Lǝǧ-u täññǝtʷall.

{the boy} {asleep is}

'The boy is asleep.' (-u is a definite article. Lǝǧ is 'boy'. Lǝǧu is 'the boy')

አየሩ

Ayyäru

the weather

ደስ

däss

pleasant

ይላል

yǝlall.

feels

አየሩ ደስ ይላል

Ayyäru däss yǝlall.

{the weather} pleasant feels

'The weather feels pleasant.'

እሱ

Ǝssu

he

ወደ

wädä

to

ከተማ

kätäma

city

መጣ

mäṭṭa

came

እሱ ወደ ከተማ መጣ

Ǝssu wädä kätäma mäṭṭa

he to city {came}

'He came to the city.'

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Amharic grammar distinguishes person, number, and often gender. This includes personal pronouns such as English I, Amharic እኔ ǝne; English she, Amharic እሷ ǝsswa. As in other Semitic languages, the same distinctions appear in three other places in their grammar.

Subject–verb agreement

All Amharic verbs agree with their subjects; that is, the person, number, and (in the second- and third-person singular) gender of the subject of the verb are marked by suffixes or prefixes on the verb. Because the affixes that signal subject agreement vary greatly with the particular verb tense/aspect/mood, they are normally not considered to be pronouns and are discussed elsewhere in this article under verb conjugation.

Object pronoun suffixes

Amharic verbs often have additional morphology that indicates the person, number, and (second- and third-person singular) gender of the object of the verb.

አልማዝን

almazǝn

Almaz-ACC

አየኋት

ayyähʷ-at

I saw her

አልማዝን አየኋት

almazǝn ayyähʷ-at

Almaz-ACC {I saw her}

'I saw Almaz.'

While morphemes such as -at in this example are sometimes described as signaling object agreement, analogous to subject agreement, they are more often thought of as object pronoun suffixes because, unlike the markers of subject agreement, they do not vary significantly with the tense/aspect/mood of the verb. For arguments of the verb other than the subject or the object, there are two separate sets of related suffixes, one with a benefactive meaning (to, for), the other with an adversative or locative meaning (against, to the detriment of, on, at).

ለአልማዝ

läʾalmaz

for-Almaz

በሩን

bärrun

door-DEF-ACC

ከፈትኩላት

käffätku-llat

I opened for her

ለአልማዝ በሩን ከፈትኩላት

läʾalmaz bärrun käffätku-llat

for-Almaz door-DEF-ACC {I opened for her}

'I opened the door for Almaz.'

በአልማዝ

bäʾalmaz

on-Almaz

በሩን

bärrun

door-DEF-ACC

ዘጋሁባት

zäggahu-bbat

I closed on her

በአልማዝ በሩን ዘጋሁባት

bäʾalmaz bärrun zäggahu-bbat

on-Almaz door-DEF-ACC {I closed on her}

'I closed the door on Almaz (to her detriment).'

Morphemes such as -llat and -bbat in these examples will be referred to in this article as prepositional object pronoun suffixes because they correspond to prepositional phrases such as for her and on her, to distinguish them from the direct object pronoun suffixes such as -at 'her'.

Possessive suffixes

Amharic has a further set of morphemes that are suffixed to nouns, signalling possession: ቤት bet 'house', ቤቴ bete, my house, ቤቷ; betwa, her house.

In each of these four aspects of the grammar, independent pronouns, subject–verb agreement, object pronoun suffixes, and possessive suffixes, Amharic distinguishes eight combinations of person, number, and gender. For first person, there is a two-way distinction between singular (I) and plural (we), whereas for second and third persons, there is a distinction between singular and plural and within the singular a further distinction between masculine and feminine (you m. sg., you f. sg., you pl., he, she, they).

Amharic is a pro-drop language: neutral sentences in which no element is emphasized normally omit independent pronouns: ኢትዮጵያዊ ነው ʾityop̣p̣yawi näw 'he's Ethiopian', ጋበዝኳት gabbäzkwat 'I invited her'. The Amharic words that translate he, I, and her do not appear in these sentences as independent words. However, in such cases, the person, number, and (second- or third-person singular) gender of the subject and object are marked on the verb. When the subject or object in such sentences is emphasized, an independent pronoun is used: እሱ ኢትዮጵያዊ ነው ǝssu ʾityop̣p̣yawi näw 'he's Ethiopian', እኔ ጋበዝኳት ǝne gabbäzkwat 'I invited her', እሷን ጋበዝኳት ǝsswan gabbäzkwat 'I invited her'.

The table below shows alternatives for many of the forms. The choice depends on what precedes the form in question, usually whether this is a vowel or a consonant, for example, for the first-person singular possessive suffix, አገሬ agär-e 'my country', ገላዬ gäla-ye 'my body'.

Amharic Personal Pronouns
English Independent Object pronoun suffixes Possessive suffixes
Direct Prepositional
Benefactive Locative/
Adversative
I እኔ
ǝne
-(ä/ǝ)ñ -(ǝ)llǝñ -(ǝ)bbǝñ -(y)e
you (m. sg.) አንተ
antä
-(ǝ)h -(ǝ)llǝh -(ǝ)bbǝh -(ǝ)h
you (f. sg.) አንቺ
anči
-(ǝ)š -(ǝ)llǝš -(ǝ)bbǝš -(ǝ)š
you (polite) እርስዎ
ərswo
-(ǝ)wo(t) -(ǝ)llǝwo(t) -(ǝ)bbǝwo(t) -wo
he እሱ
ǝssu
-(ä)w, -t -(ǝ)llät -(ǝ)bbät -(w)u
she እሷ
ǝsswa
-at -(ǝ)llat -(ǝ)bbat -wa
s/he (polite) እሳቸው
ǝssaččäw
-aččäw -(ǝ)llaččäw -(ǝ)bbaččäw -aččäw
we እኛ
ǝñña
-(ä/ǝ)n -(ǝ)llǝn -(ǝ)bbǝn -aččǝn
you (pl.) እናንተ
ǝnnantä
-aččǝhu -(ǝ)llaččǝhu -(ǝ)bbaččǝhu -aččǝhu
they እነሱ
ǝnnässu
-aččäw -(ǝ)llaččäw -(ǝ)bbaččäw -aččäw

Within second- and third-person singular, there are two additional polite independent pronouns, for reference to people to whom the speaker wishes to show respect. This usage is an example of the so-called T–V distinction that is made in many languages. The polite pronouns in Amharic are እርስዎ ǝrswo 'you (sg. polite)'. and እሳቸው ǝssaččäw 's/he (polite)'. Although these forms are singular semantically—they refer to one person—they correspond to third-person plural elsewhere in the grammar, as is common in other T–V systems. For the possessive pronouns, however, the polite 2nd person has the special suffix -wo 'your sg. pol.'

For possessive pronouns (mine, yours, etc.), Amharic adds the independent pronouns to the preposition yä- 'of': የኔ yäne 'mine', ያንተ yantä 'yours m. sg.', ያንቺ yanči 'yours f. sg.', የሷ yässwa 'hers', etc.

Reflexive pronouns

For reflexive pronouns ('myself', 'yourself', etc.), Amharic adds the possessive suffixes to the noun ራስ ras 'head': ራሴ rase 'myself', ራሷ raswa 'herself', etc.

Demonstrative pronouns

Like English, Amharic makes a two-way distinction between near ('this, these') and far ('that, those') demonstrative expressions (pronouns, adjectives, adverbs). Besides number, Amharic - unlike English - also distinguishes between the masculine and the feminine genders in the singular.

Amharic demonstrative pronouns
Number, Gender Near Far
Singular Masculine ይህ yǝh(ǝ) ya
Feminine ይቺ yǝčči, ይህች yǝhǝčč ያቺ
yačči
Plural እነዚህ ǝnnäzzih እነዚያ ǝnnäzziya

There are also separate demonstratives for formal reference, comparable to the formal personal pronouns: እኚህ ǝññih 'this, these (formal)' and እኒያ ǝnniya 'that, those (formal)'.

The singular pronouns have combining forms beginning with zz instead of y when they follow a preposition: ስለዚህ sǝläzzih 'because of this; therefore', እንደዚያ ǝndäzziya 'like that'. Note that the plural demonstratives, like the second and third person plural personal pronouns, are formed by adding the plural prefix እነ ǝnnä- to the singular masculine forms.

Nouns

Amharic nouns can be primary or derived. A noun like ǝgǝr 'foot, leg' is primary, and a noun like ǝgr-äñña 'pedestrian' is a derived noun.

Gender

Amharic nouns can have a masculine or feminine gender. There are several ways to express gender. An example is the old suffix -t for femininity. This suffix is no longer productive and is limited to certain patterns and some isolated nouns. Nouns and adjectives ending in -awi usually take the suffix -t to form the feminine form, e.g. ityop̣p̣ya-(a)wi 'Ethiopian (m.)' vs. ityop̣p̣ya-wi-t 'Ethiopian (f.)'; sämay-awi 'heavenly (m.)' vs. sämay-awi-t 'heavenly (f.)'. This suffix also occurs in nouns and adjective based on the pattern qǝt(t)ul, e.g. nǝgus 'king' vs. nǝgǝs-t 'queen' and qǝddus 'holy (m.)' vs. qǝddǝs-t 'holy (f.)'.

Some nouns and adjectives take a feminine marker -it: lǝǧ 'child, boy' vs. lǝǧ-it 'girl'; bäg 'sheep, ram' vs. bäg-it 'ewe'; šǝmagǝlle 'senior, elder (m.)' vs. šǝmagǝll-it 'old woman'; ṭoṭa 'monkey' vs. ṭoṭ-it 'monkey (f.)'. Some nouns have this feminine marker without having a masculine opposite, e.g. šärär-it 'spider', azur-it 'whirlpool, eddy'. There are, however, also nouns having this -it suffix that are treated as masculine: säraw-it 'army', nägar-it 'big drum'.

The feminine gender is not only used to indicate biological gender, but may also be used to express smallness, e.g. bet-it-u 'the little house' (lit. house-FEM-DEF). The feminine marker can also serve to express tenderness or sympathy.

Specifiers

Amharic has special words that can be used to indicate the gender of people and animals. For people, wänd is used for masculinity and set for femininity, e.g. wänd lǝǧ 'boy', set lǝǧ 'girl'; wänd hakim 'physician, doctor (m.)', set hakim 'physician, doctor (f.)'.

For animals, the words täbat, awra, or wänd (less usual) can be used to indicate masculine gender, and anəst or set to indicate feminine gender. Examples: täbat ṭǝǧǧa 'calf (m.)'; awra doro 'cock (rooster)'; set doro 'hen'.

Plural

The plural suffix -očč is used to express plurality of nouns. Some morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel. For nouns ending in a consonant, plain -očč is used: bet 'house' becomes bet-očč 'houses'. For nouns ending in a back vowel (-a, -o, -u), the suffix takes the form -ʷočč, e.g. wǝšša 'dog', wǝšša-ʷočč 'dogs'; käbäro 'drum', käbäro-ʷočč 'drums'. Nouns that end in a front vowel pluralize using -ʷočč or -yočč, e.g. ṣähafi 'scholar', ṣähafi-ʷočč or ṣähafi-yočč 'scholars'. Another possibility for nouns ending in a vowel is to delete the vowel and use plain očč, as in wǝšš-očč 'dogs'.

Besides using the normal external plural (-očč), nouns and adjectives can be pluralized by way of reduplicating one of the radicals. For example, wäyzäro 'lady' can take the normal plural, yielding wäyzär-očč, but wäyzazər 'ladies' is also found (Leslau 1995:173).

Some kinship-terms have two plural forms with a slightly different meaning. For example, wändǝmm 'brother' can be pluralized as wändǝmm-očč 'brothers' but also as wändǝmmam-ač 'brothers of each other'. Likewise, ǝhǝt 'sister' can be pluralized as ǝhǝt-očč ('sisters'), but also as ǝtǝmm-am-ač 'sisters of each other'.

In compound words, the plural marker is suffixed to the second noun: betä krǝstiyan 'church' (lit. house of Christian) becomes betä krǝstiyan-očč 'churches'.

Archaic forms

Amsalu Aklilu has pointed out that Amharic has inherited a large number of old plural forms directly from Classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez) (Amharic: gǝ'ǝz) (Leslau 1995:172). There are basically two archaic pluralising strategies, called external and internal plural. The external plural consists of adding the suffix -an (usually masculine) or -at (usually feminine) to the singular form. The internal plural employs vowel quality or apophony to pluralize words, similar to English man vs. men and goose vs. geese. Sometimes combinations of the two systems are found. The archaic plural forms are sometimes used to form new plurals, but this is only considered grammatical in more established cases.

  • Examples of the external plural: mämhǝr 'teacher', mämhǝr-an; ṭäbib 'wise person', ṭäbib-an; kahǝn 'priest', kahǝn-at; qal 'word', qal-at.
  • Examples of the internal plural: dǝngǝl 'virgin', dänagǝl; hagär 'land', ahǝgur.
  • Examples of combined systems: nǝgus 'king', nägäs-t; kokäb 'star', käwakǝb-t; mäṣǝhaf 'book', mäṣahǝf-t.

Definiteness

If a noun is definite or specified, this is expressed by a suffix, the article, which is -u or -w for masculine singular nouns and -wa, -itwa or -ätwa for feminine singular nouns. For example:

masculine sg masculine sg definite feminine sg feminine sg definite

ቤት

bet

ቤት

bet

house

ቤቱ

bet-u

ቤቱ

bet-u

the house

ሰራተኛ

särratäñña

ሰራተኛ

särratäñña

maid

ሰራተኛዋ

särratäñña-wa

ሰራተኛዋ

särratäñña-wa

the maid

In singular forms, this article distinguishes between the male and female gender; in plural forms this distinction is absent, and all definites are marked with -u, e.g. bet-očč-u 'houses', gäräd-očč-u 'maids'. As in the plural, morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel.

Accusative

Amharic has an accusative marker, -(ə)n. Its use is related to the definiteness of the object, thus Amharic shows differential object marking. In general, if the object is definite, possessed, or a proper noun, the accusative must be used, but if the direct object is not determined, the accusative marker is generally not used. (Leslau 1995: pp. 181–182 ff.).

ልጁ

lǝǧ-u

child-M.DEF

ውሻውን

wǝšša-w-ǝn

dog-DEF-ACC

አባረረ

abbarrär-ä.

drove.away-3MS.SUBJ

ልጁ ውሻውን አባረረ

lǝǧ-u wǝšša-w-ǝn abbarrär-ä.

child-M.DEF dog-DEF-ACC drove.away-3MS.SUBJ

'The boy drove the dog away.'

ውሻዋ

wǝšša-wa

dog-F.DEF

በግ

bäg

sheep

ነከሰች

näkkäs-äčč.

bit-3FS.SUBJ

ውሻዋ በግ ነከሰች

wǝšša-wa bäg näkkäs-äčč.

dog-F.DEF sheep bit-3FS.SUBJ

'The dog (F) bit a sheep.'

The accusative suffix is usually placed after the first word of the noun phrase:

ይህን

Yǝh-ǝn

this-ACC

ሰዓት

sä'at

watch

ገዛ

gäzz-a.

bought-3MS.SUBJ

ይህን ሰዓት ገዛ

Yǝh-ǝn sä'at gäzz-a.

this-ACC watch bought-3MS.SUBJ

'He bought this watch.'

Nominalisation

Amharic has various ways to derive nouns from other words or other nouns. One way of nominalising consists of a form of vowel agreement (similar vowels on similar places) inside the three-radical structures typical of Semitic languages. For example:

  • CəCäC: – ṭǝbäb 'wisdom'; hǝmäm 'sickness'
  • CəCCaC-e: – wǝffar-e 'obesity'; č'ǝkkan-e 'cruelty'
  • CəCC-ät: – rǝṭb-ät 'moistness'; 'ǝwq-ät 'knowledge'; wəfr-ät 'fatness'.

There are also several nominalising suffixes.

  • -ǝnna: – 'relation'; krǝst-ənna 'Christianity'; sənf-ənna 'laziness'; qes-ǝnna 'priesthood'.
  • -e, suffixed to place name X, yields 'a person from X': goǧǧam-e 'someone from Gojjam'.
  • -äñña and -täñña serve to express profession, or some relationship with the base noun: ǝgr-äñña 'pedestrian' (from ǝgǝr 'foot'); bärr-äñña 'gate-keeper' (from bärr 'gate').
  • -ǝnnät and -nnät – '-ness'; ityop̣p̣yawi-nnät 'Ethiopianness'; qǝrb-ənnät 'nearness' (from qǝrb 'near').

Verbs

Conjugation

As in other Semitic languages, Amharic verbs use a combination of prefixes and suffixes to indicate the subject, distinguishing 3 persons, two numbers, and (in all persons except first-person and "honorific" pronouns) two genders.

Gerund

Along with the infinitive and the present participle, the gerund is one of three non-finite verb forms. The infinitive is a nominalized verb, the present participle expresses incomplete action, and the gerund expresses completed action, e.g. ali məsa bälto wädä gäbäya hedä 'Ali, having eaten lunch, went to the market'. There are several usages of the gerund depending on its morpho-syntactic features.

Verbal use

The gerund functions as the head of a subordinate clause (see the example above). There may be more than one gerund in one sentence. The gerund is used to form the following tense forms:

  • present perfect nägro -all/näbbär 'He has said'.
  • past perfect nägro näbbär 'He had said'.
  • possible perfect nägro yǝhonall 'He (probably) has said'.
Adverbial use

The gerund can be used as an adverb: alfo alfo yǝsǝqall 'Sometimes he laughs'. (From ማለፍ 'to pass')

Adjectives

Adjectives are words or constructions used to qualify nouns. Adjectives in Amharic can be formed in several ways: they can be based on nominal patterns, or derived from nouns, verbs and other parts of speech. Adjectives can be nominalized by way of suffixing the nominal article (see Nouns above). Amharic has few primary adjectives. Some examples are dägg 'kind, generous', dǝda 'mute, dumb, silent', bič̣a 'yellow'.

Nominal patterns

CäCCaC – käbbad 'heavy'; läggas 'generous'
CäC(C)iC – räqiq 'fine, subtle'; addis 'new'
CäC(C)aCa – säbara 'broken'; ṭämama 'bent, wrinkled'
CəC(C)əC – bǝlǝh 'intelligent, smart'; dǝbbǝq' 'hidden'
CəC(C)uC – kǝbur 'worthy, dignified'; ṭǝqur 'black'; qəddus 'holy'

Denominalizing suffixes

-äñña – hayl-äñña 'powerful' (from hayl 'power'); ǝwnät-äñña 'true' (from ǝwnät 'truth')
-täñña – aläm-täñña 'secular' (from aläm 'world')
-awi – lǝbb-awi 'intelligent' (from lǝbb 'heart'); mǝdr-awi 'earthly' (from mǝdr 'earth'); haymanot-awi 'religious' (from haymanot 'religion')

Prefix

yä-kätäma 'urban' (lit. 'from the city'); yä-krǝstǝnna 'Christian' (lit. 'of Christianity'); yä-wǝšät 'wrong' (lit. 'of falsehood').

Adjective noun complex

The adjective and the noun together are called the 'adjective noun complex'. In Amharic, the adjective precedes the noun, with the verb last; e.g. kǝfu geta 'a bad master'; təlləq bet särra (lit. big house he-built) 'he built a big house'.

If the adjective noun complex is definite, the definite article is suffixed to the adjective and not to the noun, e.g. tǝllǝq-u bet (lit. big-def house) 'the big house'. In a possessive construction, the adjective takes the definite article, and the noun takes the pronominal possessive suffix, e.g. tǝllǝq-u bet-e (lit. big-def house-my) "my big house".

When enumerating adjectives using -nna 'and', both adjectives take the definite article: qonǧo-wa-nna astäway-wa lǝǧ mäṭṭačč (lit. pretty-def-and intelligent-def girl came) "the pretty and intelligent girl came". In the case of an indefinite plural adjective noun complex, the noun is plural and the adjective may be used in singular or in plural form. Thus, 'diligent students' can be rendered tǝgu tämariʷočč (lit. diligent student-PLUR) or təguʷočč tämariʷočč (lit. diligent-PLUR student-PLUR).

Dialects

Not much has been published about Amharic dialect differences. All dialects are mutually intelligible, but certain minor variations are noted.[51][52]

Mittwoch described a form of Amharic spoken by the descendants of Weyto language speakers,[53] but it was likely not a dialect of Amharic so much as the result of incomplete language learning as the community shifted languages from Weyto to Amharic.[citation needed]

Literature

 
The Ethiopian anthem (since 1992) in Amharic, done on manual typewriter.

The oldest surviving examples of written Amharic date back to the reigns of the 14th century Emperor of Ethiopia Amda Seyon I and his successors, who commissioned a number of poems known as "የወታደሮች መዝሙር" (Soldier songs) glorifying them and their troops. There is a growing body of literature in Amharic in many genres. This literature includes government proclamations and records, educational books, religious material, novels, poetry, proverb collections, dictionaries (monolingual and bilingual), technical manuals, medical topics, etc. The Bible was first translated into Amharic by Abu Rumi in the early 19th century, but other translations of the Bible into Amharic have been done since. The most famous Amharic novel is Fiqir Iske Meqabir (transliterated various ways) by Haddis Alemayehu (1909–2003), translated into English by Sisay Ayenew with the title Love unto Crypt, published in 2005 (ISBN 978-1-4184-9182-6).

Rastafari movement

The word Rastafari comes from Ras Täfäri, the pre-regnal title of Haile Selassie, composed of the Amharic words Ras (literally "Head", an Ethiopian title equivalent to duke) and Haile Selassie's pre-regnal name, Tafari.[54]

Many Rastafarians learn Amharic as a second language, as they consider it to be sacred. After Haile Selassie's 1966 visit to Jamaica, study circles in Amharic were organized in Jamaica as part of the ongoing exploration of Pan-African identity and culture.[55] Various reggae artists in the 1970s, including Ras Michael, Lincoln Thompson and Misty in Roots, have sung in Amharic, thus bringing the language to a wider audience. The Abyssinians, a reggae group, have also used Amharic, most notably in the song "Satta Massagana". The title was believed to mean "give thanks"; however, this phrase means "he thanked" or "he praised", as säṭṭä means "he gave", and amässägänä "thanks" or "praise". The correct way to say "give thanks" in Amharic is one word, misgana. The word "satta" has become a common expression in the Rastafari dialect of English, Iyaric, meaning "to sit down and partake".[56]

Software

Amharic is supported on most major Linux distributions, including Fedora and Ubuntu.

The Amharic script is included in Unicode, in the Ethiopic block (U+1200 – U+137F). Nyala font is included on Windows 7 (see YouTube video)[57] and Vista (Amharic Language Interface Pack)[58] to display and edit using the Amharic Script. In February 2010, Microsoft released its Windows Vista operating system in Amharic, enabling Amharic speakers to use its operating system in their language.

Google added Amharic to its Language Tools[59] which allows typing Amharic Script online without an Amharic Keyboard. Since 2004 Wikipedia has had an Amharic language Wiki that uses Ethiopic script.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2021). Amharic. Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Eighteenth ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  2. ^ Morgan, Mike (9 April 2010). "Complexities of Ethiopian Sign Language Contact Phenomena & Implications for AAU". L'Alliance française et le Centre Français des Études Éthiopiennes. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
  3. ^ a b Shaban, Abdurahman. "One to five: Ethiopia gets four new federal working languages". Africa News.
  4. ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh; Collins English Dictionary (2003), Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary (2010)
  5. ^ "Amharic". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  6. ^ "Amharic". Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
  7. ^ "Amharic". dictionary.com. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  8. ^ Meyer, Ronny (2011). "The Role of Amharic as a National Language and an African lingua franca". In Stefan Weninger (ed.). The Semitic Languages. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 1212–1220.
  9. ^ Gebremichael, M. (2011). Federalism and conflict management in Ethiopia: case study of Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State (PhD). United Kingdom: University of Bradford. hdl:10454/5388.
  10. ^ "Amharic". Ethnologue. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  11. ^ "Amharic". Ethnologue. 19 November 2019. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
  12. ^ "The world factbook". cia.gov. 2 March 2022.
  13. ^ a b Adugna, Gabe. "Research: Language Learning - Amharic: Home". library.bu.edu. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
  14. ^ "Amharic alphabet, pronunciation and language". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
  15. ^ Mohammad Hassan, The Oromo of Ethiopia, pp.3
  16. ^ The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia: Essays in History and Social Anthropology, Donham Donald Donham, Lecturer in Social Anthropology Wendy James, Dr, PhD, Former Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Christopher Clapham, Patrick Manning CUP Archive, Sep 4, 1986, p. 11, https://books.google.com/books?id=dvk8AAAAIAAJ&q=Lisane+amharic#v=snippet&q=Lisane%20amharic&f=false
  17. ^ Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia, Paul B. Henze, November 18th 2008, p. 78, https://books.google.com/books?id=3VYBDgAAQBAJ&q=Lisane#v=snippet&q=Lisane&f=false
  18. ^ "ETHIOPIA TO ADD 4 MORE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES TO FOSTER UNITY". Ventures Africa. Ventures. 4 March 2020. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  19. ^ "Ethiopia is adding four more official languages to Amharic as political instability mounts". Nazret. Nazret. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  20. ^ Meyer, Ronny (2006). "Amharic as lingua franca in Ethiopia". Lissan: Journal of African Languages and Linguistics. 20 (1/2): 117–131 – via Academia.edu.
  21. ^ Teferra, Anbessa (2013). "Amharic: Political and social effects on English loan words". In Rosenhouse, Judith; Kowner, Rotem (eds.). Globally Speaking: Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages. Multilingual Matters. p. 165.
  22. ^ Central Statistical Agency. 2010. "Population and Housing Census 2007 Report, National". Accessed 13 December 2016].
  23. ^ "Israel's Ethiopian Jews keep ancient language alive in prayer". Al-Monitor. 29 June 2017. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
  24. ^ "Language Access Act Fact Sheet" (PDF). 5 October 2011. (PDF) from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  25. ^ a b Levine, Donald N. (2014). Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society. University of Chicago Press. pp. 27–28. ISBN 978-0-226-22967-6. The analysis of linguistic distributions suggests that the proto-Ethiopians of the third millennium B.C. spoke languages derived from a single stock, that is known as Hamito-Semitic or Afro-Asiatic. This ancestral language probably originated in the eastern Sahara, before the desiccation of that region... the homeland of Afro-Asiatic may have been in southwest Ethiopia. Wherever the origins of Afro-Asiatic, it seems clear that peoples speaking proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic separated as groups with distinct languages by the fifth or fourth millennium BC and began peopling the Ethiopian plateaus not long after. Proto-Semitic separated at about the same time or somewhat earlier and passed over into Asia Minor... it seems reasonable to follow I. M. Diakonoff in assuming that the Semitic-speakers moved from the Sahara across the Nile Delta over Sinai, so that the presence of Semitic-speaking populations in Ethiopia must be attributed to a return movement of Semitic-speakers into Africa from South Arabia... As a base line for reconstructing the history of Greater Ethiopia, then, we may consider it plausible that by the end of the third millenium B.C. its main inhabitants were dark-skinned Caucasoid or "Afro-Mediterranean" peoples practicing rudimentary forms of agriculture and animal husbandry and speaking three branches of Afro-Asiatic – Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic.
  26. ^ Appiah, Anthony; Henry Louis Gates (2010). Encyclopedia of Africa. Oxford University Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-19-533770-9.
  27. ^ Kebede, Messay (2003). "Eurocentrism and Ethiopian Historiography: Deconstructing Semitization". University of Dayton-Department of Philosophy. International Journal of Ethiopian Studies. Tsehai Publishers. 1: 1–19 – via JSTOR.
  28. ^ Alemu, Daniel E. (2007). "Re-imagining the Horn". African Renaissance. 4 (1): 56–64 – via Ingenta.
  29. ^ a b Meyer, Ronny (2011). "Amharic". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter De Gruyter. pp. 1178–1212. ISBN 9783110251586.
  30. ^ Edzard, Lutz (2019). "Amharic". In John Huehnergard; Naʽama Pat-El (eds.). The Semitic Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 202–226.
  31. ^ a b Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification. Manchester University Press. p. 36. ISBN 9780719011238.
  32. ^ Fage, J.D.; Oliver, Roland Anthony (1975). The Cambridge History of Africa: From c. 500 B.C. to A.D. 1050. Cambridge University Press. p. 126. ISBN 9780521209816.
  33. ^ Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification. Manchester University Press. pp. 36, 87–88. ISBN 9780719011238.
  34. ^ Appleyard, David. "Amharic: History and dialectology of Amharic". Encyclopedia Aethopica. Vol. 1. p. 235.
  35. ^ Butts, Aaron Michael (2015). Semitic languages in contact. Leiden, Boston: Brill. pp. 18–21. ISBN 9789004300156. OCLC 1083204409.
  36. ^ "Amhara | Definition, History, & Culture | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  37. ^ Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification. Manchester University Press. p. 88. ISBN 9780719011238.
  38. ^ Demeke, Girma (2014). The Origin of Amharic. The Red Sea Press. pp. 45–52. ISBN 978-1-56902-379-2. OCLC 824502290.
  39. ^ Prunier, Gérard; Ficquet, Éloi, eds. (2015). Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia: Monarchy, Revolution and the Legacy of Meles Zenawi. London: C. Hurst & Co. p. 19. ISBN 9781849042611.
  40. ^ Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification. Manchester University Press. p. 124. ISBN 9780719011238.
  41. ^ Demeke, Girma (2014). The Origin of Amharic. The Red Sea Press. pp. 15, 133–138. ISBN 978-1-56902-379-2. OCLC 824502290.
  42. ^ Butts, Aaron Michael (2015). Semitic languages in contact. Leiden, Boston: Brill. p. 22. ISBN 9789004300156. OCLC 1083204409.
  43. ^ Tamrat, Taddesse (1972). Church and state in Ethiopia, 1270-1527. Clarendon Press. pp. 34–38. ISBN 978-1-59907-039-1. OCLC 783536291.
  44. ^ Demeke, Girma (2014). The Origin of Amharic. The Red Sea Press. pp. 33, 131–137. ISBN 978-1-56902-379-2. OCLC 824502290.
  45. ^ Demeke, Girma (2014). The Origin of Amharic. The Red Sea Press. pp. 8–54. ISBN 978-1-56902-379-2. OCLC 824502290.
  46. ^ Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification. Manchester University Press. pp. 22, 67, 88. ISBN 9780719011238.
  47. ^ a b c d Hayward, Katrina; Hayward, Richard J. (1999). "Amharic". Handbook of the IPA. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 44–51.
  48. ^ a b Hudson, Grover. "Amharic". The World's Major Languages. 2009. Print. Ed. Comrie, Bernard. Oxon and New York: Routledge. pp. 594–617. ISBN 0-203-30152-8.
  49. ^ Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). "Ethiopic Writing". The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. p. 573. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.
  50. ^ habesha (28 September 2010). . Bigaddis. Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  51. ^ Tefera, Anbessa (1999). "Differences Between the Amharic Dialects of Gondär and Addis Abäba". In Parfitt, T.; Semi, E. Trevisan (eds.). The Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Israel, Studies on the Ethiopian Jews. London: Curzon Press. pp. 257–263. ISBN 0-7007-1092-2.
  52. ^ Aklilu, Amsalu; Marcos, Habte Mariam (1973). "The dialect of Wällo". Journal of Ethiopian Studies. 11 (2): 124–29. JSTOR 41988260.
  53. ^ Mittwoch, Eugen (1907). "Proben aus dem amharischen Volksmund". Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin. 10 (2): 185–241. OCLC 9609265.
  54. ^ Kevin O'Brien Chang; Wayne Chen (1998). Reggae Routes: The Story of Jamaican Music. Temple University Press. pp. 242–. ISBN 978-1-56639-629-5. Retrieved 2 May 2013.
  55. ^ Bernard Collins (The Abyssinians) Interview 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Published 4 November 2011 by Jah Rebel. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  56. ^ "SNWMF 2005 – Performers". Snwmf.com. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  57. ^ "Amharic Keyboard for Windows Vista". YouTube. 1 February 2009. Archived from the original on 30 October 2021. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  58. ^ "የዳውንሎድ ዝርዝር፡- Windows Vista LIP". Microsoft.com. 29 January 2010. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  59. ^ "Google". Retrieved 4 March 2012.

Grammar

  • Ludolf, Hiob (1698). Grammatica Linguæ Amharicæ. Frankfort.
  • Abraham, Roy Clive (1968). The Principles of Amharic. Occasional Publication / Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. [rewritten version of 'A modern grammar of spoken Amharic', 1941]
  • Afevork, Ghevre Jesus (1905). Grammatica della lingua amarica: metodo pratico per l'insegnamento. R. Accademia dei Lincei.
  • Afevork Ghevre Jesus (1911). Il verbo amarico. Roma.
  • Amsalu Aklilu & Demissie Manahlot (1990). T'iru ye'Amarinnya Dirset 'Indet Yale New! (An Amharic grammar, in Amharic)
  • Anbessa Teferra and Grover Hudson (2007). Essentials of Amharic. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
  • Appleyard, David (1994). Colloquial Amharic. Routledge ISBN 0-415-10003-8
  • Carl Hubert, Armbruster (1908). Initia amharica: an Introduction to Spoken Amharic. The University Press.
  • Baye Yimam (2007). Amharic Grammar. Second Edition. Addis Ababa University. Ethiopia.
  • Bender, M. Lionel. (1974) "Phoneme frequencies in Amharic". Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12.1:19–24
  • Bender, M. Lionel and Hailu Fulass (1978). Amharic verb morphology. (Committee on Ethiopian Studies, monograph 7.) East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University.
  • Bennet, M. E. (1978). Stratificational Approaches to Amharic Phonology. PhD thesis, Ann Arbor: Michigan State University.
  • Cohen, Marcel (1936). Traité de langue amharique. Paris: Institut d'Ethnographie.
  • Cohen, Marcel (1939). Nouvelles études d'éthiopien merdional. Paris: Champion.
  • Dawkins, C. H. (¹1960, ²1969). The Fundamentals of Amharic. Addis Ababa.
  • Kapeliuk, Olga (1988). Nominalization in Amharic. Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-515-04512-0
  • Kapeliuk, Olga (1994). Syntax of the noun in Amharic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-03406-8.
  • Łykowska, Laura (1998). Gramatyka jezyka amharskiego Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog. ISBN 83-86483-60-1
  • Leslau, Wolf (1995). Reference Grammar of Amharic. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-447-03372-X
  • Praetorius, Franz (1879). Die amharische Sprache. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.

Dictionaries

  • Abbadie, Antoine d' (1881). Dictionnaire de la langue amariñña. Actes de la Société philologique, t. 10. Paris.
  • Amsalu Aklilu (1973). English-Amharic dictionary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-572264-7
  • Baeteman, J.-É. (1929). Dictionnaire amarigna-français. Diré-Daoua
  • Gankin, É. B. (1969). Amxarsko-russkij slovar'. Pod redaktsiej Kassa Gäbrä Heywät. Moskva: Izdatel'stvo 'Sovetskaja Éntsiklopedija'.
  • Guidi, I. (1901). Vocabolario amarico-italiano. Roma.
  • Isenberg, Karl Wilhelm (1841). Dictionary of the Amharic language: Amharic and English: Englisch and Amharic. Church Missionary Society. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
  • Guidi, I. (1940). Supplemento al Vocabolario amarico-italiano. (compilato con il concorso di Francesco Gallina ed Enrico Cerulli) Roma.
  • Kane, Thomas L. (1990). Amharic–English Dictionary. (2 vols.) Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-02871-8
  • Leslau, Wolf (1976). Concise Amharic Dictionary. (Reissue edition: 1996) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20501-4
  • Täsämma Habtä Mikael Gəṣṣəw (1953 Ethiopian calendar). Käsate Bərhan Täsämma. Yä-Amarəñña mäzgäbä qalat. Addis Ababa: Artistic.

External links

  • Amharic Keyboard online (and offline too): type 1 and type 2
  • Fonts for Geʽez script:
    • Noto Sans Ethiopic (multiple weights and widths)
    • Noto Serif Ethiopic (multiple weights and widths)
    • Abyssinica SIL (Character set support)
  • by website.

amharic, confused, with, aramaic, language, amara, language, arabic, language, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find. Not to be confused with the Aramaic language Amara language or Arabic language This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Amharic news newspapers books scholar JSTOR March 2011 Learn how and when to remove this template message Amharic ae m ˈ h aer ɪ k 4 5 6 or ɑː m ˈ h ɑːr ɪ k 7 Amharic አማርኛ Amarenna IPA amarɨɲːa listen is an Ethiopian Semitic language which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns of Ethiopia 8 Amharicአማርኛ Amarenna Amharic script fidal from Ge ez scriptPronunciation amarɨɲːa Native toEthiopiaEthnicityAmharaNative speakers32 000 000 1 2022 58 000 000 total 1 Language familyAfro Asiatic SemiticWest SemiticSouth SemiticEthiopicSouth EthiopicTransversal South EthiopicAmharic ArgobbaAmharicWriting systemGeʽez script Amharic syllabary Ge ez BrailleSigned formsSigned Amharic 2 Official statusOfficial language in Ethiopia 3 Regulated byImperial Academy former Language codesISO 639 1 span class plainlinks am span ISO 639 2 span class plainlinks amh span ISO 639 3 a href https iso639 3 sil org code amh class extiw title iso639 3 amh amh a Glottologamha1245Linguasphere12 ACB aThis article contains IPA phonetic symbols Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of Unicode characters For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia s federal regions 9 It has over 32 400 000 mother tongue speakers and more than 25 100 000 second language speakers making the total number of speakers over 57 500 000 10 Amharic is the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia and the second most spoken mother tongue in Ethiopia after Oromo Amharic is also the second largest Semitic language in the world after Arabic 11 12 Amharic is written left to right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script 13 The segmental writing system in which consonant vowel sequences are written as units is called an abugida አቡጊዳ 14 The graphemes are called fidal ፊደል which means script alphabet letter or character There is no universally agreed upon Romanization of Amharic into Latin script The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specialising in Ethiopian Semitic languages Contents 1 Background 1 1 Linguistic development theory 2 Phonology 2 1 Allophones 2 1 1 Examples 3 Writing system 3 1 Alphasyllabary 3 2 Gemination 3 3 Punctuation 4 Grammar 4 1 Pronouns 4 1 1 Personal pronouns 4 1 2 Reflexive pronouns 4 1 3 Demonstrative pronouns 4 2 Nouns 4 2 1 Gender 4 2 2 Specifiers 4 2 3 Plural 4 2 4 Archaic forms 4 2 5 Definiteness 4 2 6 Accusative 4 2 7 Nominalisation 4 3 Verbs 4 3 1 Conjugation 4 3 2 Gerund 4 3 2 1 Verbal use 4 3 2 2 Adverbial use 4 4 Adjectives 4 4 1 Nominal patterns 4 4 2 Denominalizing suffixes 4 4 3 Prefix ya 4 4 4 Adjective noun complex 5 Dialects 6 Literature 7 Rastafari movement 8 Software 9 See also 10 References 10 1 Citations 10 2 Grammar 10 3 Dictionaries 11 External linksBackground EditAmharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia language of the courts the language of trade and everyday communications and of the military since the late 12th century The Amhara nobles supported the Zagwe prince Lalibela in his power struggle against his brothers which led him to make Amharic Lessana Negus as well as fill the Amhara nobles in the top positions of his Kingdom 15 While the appellation of language of the king Ge ez ልሳነ ንጉሥ Lisane Negus Amharic የንጉሥ ቋንቋ Ye Negus QwanQwa and its use in the royal court are otherwise traced to the Amhara Emperor Yekuno Amlak 16 17 It is one of the official languages of Ethiopia together with Oromo Somali Afar and Tigrinya Amharic is an Afro Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Geʽez or Ethiopic the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church Amharic is written in a slightly modified form of the alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language There are 33 basic characters each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia 18 19 3 20 21 The 2007 census reported that Amharic was spoken by 21 6 million native speakers in Ethiopia 22 More recent sources state the number of first language speakers in 2018 as nearly 32 million with another 25 million second language speakers in Ethiopia 1 Additionally 3 million emigrants outside of Ethiopia speak the language citation needed Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic 23 citation needed In Washington DC Amharic became one of the six non English languages in the Language Access Act of 2004 which allows government services and education in Amharic 24 Furthermore Amharic is considered a holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide Linguistic development theory Edit According to Donald Levine the Afro Asiatic language family likely arose either in the eastern Sahara or in southwestern Ethiopia Early Afro Asiatic populations speaking proto Semitic proto Cushitic and proto Omotic languages would have diverged by the fourth or fifth millennium BC Shortly afterwards the proto Cushitic and proto Omotic groups would have settled in the Ethiopian highlands with the proto Semitic speakers crossing the Sinai Peninsula into Asia Minor A later return movement of peoples from South Arabia would have introduced the Semitic languages to Ethiopia 25 Based on archaeological evidence the presence of Semitic speakers in the territory date to some time before 500 BC 26 Linguistic analysis suggests the presence of Semitic languages in Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC Levine indicates that by the end of that millennium the core inhabitants of Greater Ethiopia would have consisted of swarthy Caucasoid Afro Mediterranean agropastoralists speaking Afro Asiatic languages of the Semitic Cushitic and Omotic branches 25 Other scholars such as Messay Kebede and Daniel E Alemu argue that migration across the Red Sea was defined by reciprocal exchange if it even occurred at all and that Ethio Semitic speaking ethnic groups should not be characterized as foreign invaders 27 28 Amharic is a South Ethio Semitic language along with Gurage Harari and others 29 30 31 Some time before the 1st century AD the North and South branches of Ethio Semitic diverged 31 32 Due to the social stratification of the time the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Ethio Semitic language and eventually absorbed the Semitic population 33 34 35 36 Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum 37 38 The northernmost South Ethio Semitic speakers or the proto Amhara remained in constant contact with their North Ethio Semitic neighbors evidenced by linguistic analysis and oral traditions 39 40 A 7th century southward shift of the center of gravity of the Kingdom of Aksum and the ensuing integration and Christianization of the proto Amhara also resulted in a high prevalence of Geʽez sourced lexicon in Amharic 41 42 43 Some time after the 9th century AD Amharic diverged from its closest relative Argobba probably due to religious differences as the Argobba adopted Islam 44 In 1983 Lionel Bender proposed that Amharic may have been constructed as a pidgin as early as the 4th century AD to enable communication between Aksumite soldiers speaking Semitic Cushitic and Omotic languages but this hypothesis has not garnered widespread acceptance The preservation in Old Amharic of VSO word order and gutturals typical of Semitic languages Cushitic influences shared with other Ethio Semitic languages especially those of the Southern branch and the number of geographically distinct Cushitic languages that have influenced Amharic at different points in time e g Oromo influence beginning in the 16th century support a natural evolution of Amharic from a Proto Ethio Semitic language with considerable Cushitic influences similar to Gurage Tigrinya etc 45 29 46 Phonology EditConsonants 47 Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labio Velar GlottalNasal m n ɲPlosive voiceless p t k kʷ ʔvoiced b d ɡ ɡʷejective pʼ tʼ kʼ kʷʼAffricate voiceless t ʃvoiced d ʒejective t sʼ t ʃʼFricative voiceless f s ʃ hvoiced z ʒApproximant b l j wRhotic ɾ r The Amharic ejective consonants correspond to the Proto Semitic emphatic consonants In the Ethiopianist tradition they are often transcribed with a dot below the letter The vowels of Amharic on a vowel chart 47 Vowels in parentheses are allophones of ɨ and e Vowels 47 Front Central BackHigh i ɨ e uMid e e a oLow aThe notation of central vowels in the Ethiopianist tradition is shown in angled brackets Allophones Edit The voiced bilabial plosive b is phonetically realized as a voiced labial approximant b medially between sonorants in non geminated form The affricate ejective t sʼ is also heard as a fricative ejective sʼ but is mostly heard as the affricate sound t sʼ The rhotic consonant is realized as a trill when geminated and a tap otherwise The closed central unrounded vowel Romanized e IPA ɨ and mid central vowel Romanized a IPA e are generally fronted to ɪ and ɛ respectively following palatal consonants and generally retracted and rounded to ʊ and ɔ respectively following labialized velar consonants 47 Examples Edit Ge ez Romanized Gloss IPAከበሮ kabaro drum keb eɾoብር berr Ethiopian birr bɨrይህ yeh this jɪhየማን yaman whose jɛmanውስጥ wesṭ in wʊst ወንድ wand man wɔndWriting system EditSee also Ge ez script and Amharic Braille The Ethiopic or Ge ez writing system is visible on the side of this Ethiopian Airlines Fokker 50 it reads Ethiopia s የኢትዮጵያ ye ʾityop p ya The Amharic script is an abugida and the graphemes of the Amharic writing system are called fidal 48 It is derived from a modification of the Ge ez script 13 Each character represents a consonant vowel sequence but the basic shape of each character is determined by the consonant which is modified for the vowel Some consonant phonemes are written by more than one series of characters ʔ s tsʼ and h the last one has four distinct letter forms This is because these fidal originally represented distinct sounds but phonological changes merged them 48 The citation form for each series is the consonant a form i e the first column of the fidal The Amharic script is included in Unicode and glyphs are included in fonts available with major operating systems A modern usage of Amharic the label of a Coca Cola bottle The script reads ኮካ ኮላ koka kola Alphasyllabary Edit Chart of Amharic fidels 49 a e e u i a e e ɨ o ʷa ue ʷe ʷi ui ʷa ua ʷe ue ʷe ʷɨ u h h ሀ ሁ ሂ ሃ ሄ ህ ሆ l l ለ ሉ ሊ ላ ሌ ል ሎ ሏ ḥ h ሐ ሑ ሒ ሓ ሔ ሕ ሖ ሗ m m መ ሙ ሚ ማ ሜ ም ሞ ሟ s s ሠ ሡ ሢ ሣ ሤ ሥ ሦ ሧ r r ረ ሩ ሪ ራ ሬ ር ሮ ሯ s s ሰ ሱ ሲ ሳ ሴ ስ ሶ ሷ s ʃ ሸ ሹ ሺ ሻ ሼ ሽ ሾ ሿ q kʼ ቀ ቁ ቂ ቃ ቄ ቅ ቆ ቈ ቊ ቋ ቌ ቍb b በ ቡ ቢ ባ ቤ ብ ቦ ቧ v b ቨ ቩ ቪ ቫ ቬ ቭ ቮ ቯ t t ተ ቱ ቲ ታ ቴ ት ቶ ቷ c tʃ ቸ ቹ ቺ ቻ ቼ ች ቾ ቿ ḫ h ኀ ኁ ኂ ኃ ኄ ኅ ኆ ኈ ኊ ኋ ኌ ኍn n ነ ኑ ኒ ና ኔ ን ኖ ኗ n ɲ ኘ ኙ ኚ ኛ ኜ ኝ ኞ ኟ ʼ ʔ አ ኡ ኢ ኣ ኤ እ ኦ ኧ k k ከ ኩ ኪ ካ ኬ ክ ኮ ኰ ኲ ኳ ኴ ኵx h ኸ ኹ ኺ ኻ ኼ ኽ ኾ ዀ ዂ ዃ ዄ ዅw w ወ ዉ ዊ ዋ ዌ ው ዎ ʽ ʔ ዐ ዑ ዒ ዓ ዔ ዕ ዖ z z ዘ ዙ ዚ ዛ ዜ ዝ ዞ ዟ z ʒ ዠ ዡ ዢ ዣ ዤ ዥ ዦ ዧ y j የ ዩ ዪ ያ ዬ ይ ዮ d d ደ ዱ ዲ ዳ ዴ ድ ዶ ዷ ǧ dʒ ጀ ጁ ጂ ጃ ጄ ጅ ጆ ጇ g ɡ ገ ጉ ጊ ጋ ጌ ግ ጎ ጐ ጒ ጓ ጔ ጕṭ tʼ ጠ ጡ ጢ ጣ ጤ ጥ ጦ ጧ c tʃʼ ጨ ጩ ጪ ጫ ጬ ጭ ጮ ጯ p pʼ ጰ ጱ ጲ ጳ ጴ ጵ ጶ ጷ ṣ tsʼ ጸ ጹ ጺ ጻ ጼ ጽ ጾ ጿ ṣ tsʼ ፀ ፁ ፂ ፃ ፄ ፅ ፆ f f ፈ ፉ ፊ ፋ ፌ ፍ ፎ ፏ p p ፐ ፑ ፒ ፓ ፔ ፕ ፖ ፗ a e e u i a e e ɨ o ʷ ue ʷe u ʷi ui ʷa ua ʷe ue ʷe ʷɨ u Gemination Edit As in most other Ethiopian Semitic languages gemination is contrastive in Amharic That is consonant length can distinguish words from one another for example ala he said alla there is yǝmatall he hits yǝmmattall he will be hit Gemination is not indicated in Amharic orthography but Amharic readers typically do not find this to be a problem This property of the writing system is analogous to the vowels of Arabic and Hebrew or the tones of many Bantu languages which are not normally indicated in writing Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform indicated gemination in his novel Love to the Grave by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated but this practice is rare Punctuation Edit Punctuation includes the following section mark word separator full stop period comma semicolon colon preface colon introduces speech from a descriptive prefix question mark paragraph separatorGrammar EditSimple Amharic sentencesOne may construct simple Amharic sentences by using a subject and a predicate Here are a few simple sentences 50 ኢትዮጵያʾItyop p yaEthiopiaአፍሪካʾAfrikaAfricaውስጥwǝsṭinናትnatisኢትዮጵያ አፍሪካ ውስጥ ናትʾItyop p ya ʾAfrika wǝsṭ nat Ethiopia Africa in is Ethiopia is in Africa ልጁLǝǧ uthe boyተኝቷልtannǝtʷall asleep isልጁ ተኝቷልLǝǧ u tannǝtʷall the boy asleep is The boy is asleep u is a definite article Lǝǧ is boy Lǝǧu is the boy አየሩAyyaruthe weatherደስdasspleasantይላልyǝlall feelsአየሩ ደስ ይላልAyyaru dass yǝlall the weather pleasant feels The weather feels pleasant እሱƎssuheወደwadatoከተማkatamacityመጣmaṭṭacameእሱ ወደ ከተማ መጣƎssu wada katama maṭṭahe to city came He came to the city Pronouns Edit Personal pronouns Edit Amharic grammar distinguishes person number and often gender This includes personal pronouns such as English I Amharic እኔ ǝne English she Amharic እሷ ǝsswa As in other Semitic languages the same distinctions appear in three other places in their grammar Subject verb agreementAll Amharic verbs agree with their subjects that is the person number and in the second and third person singular gender of the subject of the verb are marked by suffixes or prefixes on the verb Because the affixes that signal subject agreement vary greatly with the particular verb tense aspect mood they are normally not considered to be pronouns and are discussed elsewhere in this article under verb conjugation Object pronoun suffixesAmharic verbs often have additional morphology that indicates the person number and second and third person singular gender of the object of the verb አልማዝንalmazǝnAlmaz ACCአየኋትayyahʷ atI saw herአልማዝን አየኋትalmazǝn ayyahʷ atAlmaz ACC I saw her I saw Almaz While morphemes such as at in this example are sometimes described as signaling object agreement analogous to subject agreement they are more often thought of as object pronoun suffixes because unlike the markers of subject agreement they do not vary significantly with the tense aspect mood of the verb For arguments of the verb other than the subject or the object there are two separate sets of related suffixes one with a benefactive meaning to for the other with an adversative or locative meaning against to the detriment of on at ለአልማዝlaʾalmazfor Almazበሩንbarrundoor DEF ACCከፈትኩላትkaffatku llatI opened for herለአልማዝ በሩን ከፈትኩላትlaʾalmaz barrun kaffatku llatfor Almaz door DEF ACC I opened for her I opened the door for Almaz በአልማዝbaʾalmazon Almazበሩንbarrundoor DEF ACCዘጋሁባትzaggahu bbatI closed on herበአልማዝ በሩን ዘጋሁባትbaʾalmaz barrun zaggahu bbaton Almaz door DEF ACC I closed on her I closed the door on Almaz to her detriment Morphemes such as llat and bbat in these examples will be referred to in this article as prepositional object pronoun suffixes because they correspond to prepositional phrases such as for her and on her to distinguish them from the direct object pronoun suffixes such as at her Possessive suffixesAmharic has a further set of morphemes that are suffixed to nouns signalling possession ቤት bet house ቤቴ bete my house ቤቷ betwa her house In each of these four aspects of the grammar independent pronouns subject verb agreement object pronoun suffixes and possessive suffixes Amharic distinguishes eight combinations of person number and gender For first person there is a two way distinction between singular I and plural we whereas for second and third persons there is a distinction between singular and plural and within the singular a further distinction between masculine and feminine you m sg you f sg you pl he she they Amharic is a pro drop language neutral sentences in which no element is emphasized normally omit independent pronouns ኢትዮጵያዊ ነው ʾityop p yawi naw he s Ethiopian ጋበዝኳት gabbazkwat I invited her The Amharic words that translate he I and her do not appear in these sentences as independent words However in such cases the person number and second or third person singular gender of the subject and object are marked on the verb When the subject or object in such sentences is emphasized an independent pronoun is used እሱ ኢትዮጵያዊ ነው ǝssu ʾityop p yawi naw he s Ethiopian እኔ ጋበዝኳት ǝne gabbazkwat I invited her እሷን ጋበዝኳት ǝsswan gabbazkwat I invited her The table below shows alternatives for many of the forms The choice depends on what precedes the form in question usually whether this is a vowel or a consonant for example for the first person singular possessive suffix አገሬ agar e my country ገላዬ gala ye my body Amharic Personal Pronouns English Independent Object pronoun suffixes Possessive suffixesDirect PrepositionalBenefactive Locative AdversativeI እኔ ǝne a ǝ n ǝ llǝn ǝ bbǝn y eyou m sg አንተ anta ǝ h ǝ llǝh ǝ bbǝh ǝ hyou f sg አንቺ anci ǝ s ǝ llǝs ǝ bbǝs ǝ syou polite እርስዎ erswo ǝ wo t ǝ llǝwo t ǝ bbǝwo t wohe እሱ ǝssu a w t ǝ llat ǝ bbat w ushe እሷ ǝsswa at ǝ llat ǝ bbat was he polite እሳቸው ǝssaccaw accaw ǝ llaccaw ǝ bbaccaw accawwe እኛ ǝnna a ǝ n ǝ llǝn ǝ bbǝn accǝnyou pl እናንተ ǝnnanta accǝhu ǝ llaccǝhu ǝ bbaccǝhu accǝhuthey እነሱ ǝnnassu accaw ǝ llaccaw ǝ bbaccaw accawWithin second and third person singular there are two additional polite independent pronouns for reference to people to whom the speaker wishes to show respect This usage is an example of the so called T V distinction that is made in many languages The polite pronouns in Amharic are እርስዎ ǝrswo you sg polite and እሳቸው ǝssaccaw s he polite Although these forms are singular semantically they refer to one person they correspond to third person plural elsewhere in the grammar as is common in other T V systems For the possessive pronouns however the polite 2nd person has the special suffix wo your sg pol For possessive pronouns mine yours etc Amharic adds the independent pronouns to the preposition ya of የኔ yane mine ያንተ yanta yours m sg ያንቺ yanci yours f sg የሷ yasswa hers etc Reflexive pronouns Edit For reflexive pronouns myself yourself etc Amharic adds the possessive suffixes to the noun ራስ ras head ራሴ rase myself ራሷ raswa herself etc Demonstrative pronouns Edit Like English Amharic makes a two way distinction between near this these and far that those demonstrative expressions pronouns adjectives adverbs Besides number Amharic unlike English also distinguishes between the masculine and the feminine genders in the singular Amharic demonstrative pronouns Number Gender Near FarSingular Masculine ይህ yǝh ǝ ያ yaFeminine ይቺ yǝcci ይህች yǝhǝcc ያቺ yacciPlural እነዚህ ǝnnazzih እነዚያ ǝnnazziyaThere are also separate demonstratives for formal reference comparable to the formal personal pronouns እኚህ ǝnnih this these formal and እኒያ ǝnniya that those formal The singular pronouns have combining forms beginning with zz instead of y when they follow a preposition ስለዚህ sǝlazzih because of this therefore እንደዚያ ǝndazziya like that Note that the plural demonstratives like the second and third person plural personal pronouns are formed by adding the plural prefix እነ ǝnna to the singular masculine forms Nouns Edit Amharic nouns can be primary or derived A noun like ǝgǝr foot leg is primary and a noun like ǝgr anna pedestrian is a derived noun Gender Edit Amharic nouns can have a masculine or feminine gender There are several ways to express gender An example is the old suffix t for femininity This suffix is no longer productive and is limited to certain patterns and some isolated nouns Nouns and adjectives ending in awi usually take the suffix t to form the feminine form e g ityop p ya a wi Ethiopian m vs ityop p ya wi t Ethiopian f samay awi heavenly m vs samay awi t heavenly f This suffix also occurs in nouns and adjective based on the pattern qǝt t ul e g nǝgus king vs nǝgǝs t queen and qǝddus holy m vs qǝddǝs t holy f Some nouns and adjectives take a feminine marker it lǝǧ child boy vs lǝǧ it girl bag sheep ram vs bag it ewe sǝmagǝlle senior elder m vs sǝmagǝll it old woman ṭoṭa monkey vs ṭoṭ it monkey f Some nouns have this feminine marker without having a masculine opposite e g sarar it spider azur it whirlpool eddy There are however also nouns having this it suffix that are treated as masculine saraw it army nagar it big drum The feminine gender is not only used to indicate biological gender but may also be used to express smallness e g bet it u the little house lit house FEM DEF The feminine marker can also serve to express tenderness or sympathy Specifiers Edit Amharic has special words that can be used to indicate the gender of people and animals For people wand is used for masculinity and set for femininity e g wand lǝǧ boy set lǝǧ girl wand hakim physician doctor m set hakim physician doctor f For animals the words tabat awra or wand less usual can be used to indicate masculine gender and anest or set to indicate feminine gender Examples tabat ṭǝǧǧa calf m awra doro cock rooster set doro hen Plural Edit The plural suffix occ is used to express plurality of nouns Some morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel For nouns ending in a consonant plain occ is used bet house becomes bet occ houses For nouns ending in a back vowel a o u the suffix takes the form ʷocc e g wǝssa dog wǝssa ʷocc dogs kabaro drum kabaro ʷocc drums Nouns that end in a front vowel pluralize using ʷocc or yocc e g ṣahafi scholar ṣahafi ʷocc or ṣahafi yocc scholars Another possibility for nouns ending in a vowel is to delete the vowel and use plain occ as in wǝss occ dogs Besides using the normal external plural occ nouns and adjectives can be pluralized by way of reduplicating one of the radicals For example wayzaro lady can take the normal plural yielding wayzar occ but wayzazer ladies is also found Leslau 1995 173 Some kinship terms have two plural forms with a slightly different meaning For example wandǝmm brother can be pluralized as wandǝmm occ brothers but also as wandǝmmam ac brothers of each other Likewise ǝhǝt sister can be pluralized as ǝhǝt occ sisters but also as ǝtǝmm am ac sisters of each other In compound words the plural marker is suffixed to the second noun beta krǝstiyan church lit house of Christian becomes beta krǝstiyan occ churches Archaic forms Edit Amsalu Aklilu has pointed out that Amharic has inherited a large number of old plural forms directly from Classical Ethiopic Ge ez Amharic gǝ ǝz Leslau 1995 172 There are basically two archaic pluralising strategies called external and internal plural The external plural consists of adding the suffix an usually masculine or at usually feminine to the singular form The internal plural employs vowel quality or apophony to pluralize words similar to English man vs men and goose vs geese Sometimes combinations of the two systems are found The archaic plural forms are sometimes used to form new plurals but this is only considered grammatical in more established cases Examples of the external plural mamhǝr teacher mamhǝr an ṭabib wise person ṭabib an kahǝn priest kahǝn at qal word qal at Examples of the internal plural dǝngǝl virgin danagǝl hagar land ahǝgur Examples of combined systems nǝgus king nagas t kokab star kawakǝb t maṣǝhaf book maṣahǝf t Definiteness Edit If a noun is definite or specified this is expressed by a suffix the article which is u or w for masculine singular nouns and wa itwa or atwa for feminine singular nouns For example masculine sg masculine sg definite feminine sg feminine sg definiteቤትbetቤትbethouse ቤቱbet uቤቱbet uthe house ሰራተኛsarratannaሰራተኛsarratannamaid ሰራተኛዋsarratanna waሰራተኛዋsarratanna wathe maidIn singular forms this article distinguishes between the male and female gender in plural forms this distinction is absent and all definites are marked with u e g bet occ u houses garad occ u maids As in the plural morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel Accusative Edit Amharic has an accusative marker e n Its use is related to the definiteness of the object thus Amharic shows differential object marking In general if the object is definite possessed or a proper noun the accusative must be used but if the direct object is not determined the accusative marker is generally not used Leslau 1995 pp 181 182 ff ልጁlǝǧ uchild M DEFውሻውንwǝssa w ǝndog DEF ACCአባረረabbarrar a drove away 3MS SUBJልጁ ውሻውን አባረረlǝǧ u wǝssa w ǝn abbarrar a child M DEF dog DEF ACC drove away 3MS SUBJ The boy drove the dog away ውሻዋwǝssa wadog F DEFበግbagsheepነከሰችnakkas acc bit 3FS SUBJውሻዋ በግ ነከሰችwǝssa wa bag nakkas acc dog F DEF sheep bit 3FS SUBJ The dog F bit a sheep The accusative suffix is usually placed after the first word of the noun phrase ይህንYǝh ǝnthis ACCሰዓትsa atwatchገዛgazz a bought 3MS SUBJይህን ሰዓት ገዛYǝh ǝn sa at gazz a this ACC watch bought 3MS SUBJ He bought this watch Nominalisation Edit Amharic has various ways to derive nouns from other words or other nouns One way of nominalising consists of a form of vowel agreement similar vowels on similar places inside the three radical structures typical of Semitic languages For example CeCaC ṭǝbab wisdom hǝmam sickness CeCCaC e wǝffar e obesity c ǝkkan e cruelty CeCC at rǝṭb at moistness ǝwq at knowledge wefr at fatness There are also several nominalising suffixes ǝnna relation krǝst enna Christianity senf enna laziness qes ǝnna priesthood e suffixed to place name X yields a person from X goǧǧam e someone from Gojjam anna and tanna serve to express profession or some relationship with the base noun ǝgr anna pedestrian from ǝgǝr foot barr anna gate keeper from barr gate ǝnnat and nnat ness ityop p yawi nnat Ethiopianness qǝrb ennat nearness from qǝrb near Verbs Edit Conjugation Edit As in other Semitic languages Amharic verbs use a combination of prefixes and suffixes to indicate the subject distinguishing 3 persons two numbers and in all persons except first person and honorific pronouns two genders Gerund Edit Along with the infinitive and the present participle the gerund is one of three non finite verb forms The infinitive is a nominalized verb the present participle expresses incomplete action and the gerund expresses completed action e g ali mesa balto wada gabaya heda Ali having eaten lunch went to the market There are several usages of the gerund depending on its morpho syntactic features Verbal use Edit The gerund functions as the head of a subordinate clause see the example above There may be more than one gerund in one sentence The gerund is used to form the following tense forms present perfect nagro all nabbar He has said past perfect nagro nabbar He had said possible perfect nagro yǝhonall He probably has said Adverbial use Edit The gerund can be used as an adverb alfo alfo yǝsǝqall Sometimes he laughs From ማለፍ to pass Adjectives Edit Adjectives are words or constructions used to qualify nouns Adjectives in Amharic can be formed in several ways they can be based on nominal patterns or derived from nouns verbs and other parts of speech Adjectives can be nominalized by way of suffixing the nominal article see Nouns above Amharic has few primary adjectives Some examples are dagg kind generous dǝda mute dumb silent bic a yellow Nominal patterns Edit CaCCaC kabbad heavy laggas generous CaC C iC raqiq fine subtle addis new CaC C aCa sabara broken ṭamama bent wrinkled CeC C eC bǝlǝh intelligent smart dǝbbǝq hidden CeC C uC kǝbur worthy dignified ṭǝqur black qeddus holy Denominalizing suffixes Edit anna hayl anna powerful from hayl power ǝwnat anna true from ǝwnat truth tanna alam tanna secular from alam world awi lǝbb awi intelligent from lǝbb heart mǝdr awi earthly from mǝdr earth haymanot awi religious from haymanot religion Prefix ya Edit ya katama urban lit from the city ya krǝstǝnna Christian lit of Christianity ya wǝsat wrong lit of falsehood Adjective noun complex Edit The adjective and the noun together are called the adjective noun complex In Amharic the adjective precedes the noun with the verb last e g kǝfu geta a bad master telleq bet sarra lit big house he built he built a big house If the adjective noun complex is definite the definite article is suffixed to the adjective and not to the noun e g tǝllǝq u bet lit big def house the big house In a possessive construction the adjective takes the definite article and the noun takes the pronominal possessive suffix e g tǝllǝq u bet e lit big def house my my big house When enumerating adjectives using nna and both adjectives take the definite article qonǧo wa nna astaway wa lǝǧ maṭṭacc lit pretty def and intelligent def girl came the pretty and intelligent girl came In the case of an indefinite plural adjective noun complex the noun is plural and the adjective may be used in singular or in plural form Thus diligent students can be rendered tǝgu tamariʷocc lit diligent student PLUR or teguʷocc tamariʷocc lit diligent PLUR student PLUR Dialects EditNot much has been published about Amharic dialect differences All dialects are mutually intelligible but certain minor variations are noted 51 52 Mittwoch described a form of Amharic spoken by the descendants of Weyto language speakers 53 but it was likely not a dialect of Amharic so much as the result of incomplete language learning as the community shifted languages from Weyto to Amharic citation needed Literature EditSee also List of Amharic writers The Ethiopian anthem since 1992 in Amharic done on manual typewriter The oldest surviving examples of written Amharic date back to the reigns of the 14th century Emperor of Ethiopia Amda Seyon I and his successors who commissioned a number of poems known as የወታደሮች መዝሙር Soldier songs glorifying them and their troops There is a growing body of literature in Amharic in many genres This literature includes government proclamations and records educational books religious material novels poetry proverb collections dictionaries monolingual and bilingual technical manuals medical topics etc The Bible was first translated into Amharic by Abu Rumi in the early 19th century but other translations of the Bible into Amharic have been done since The most famous Amharic novel is Fiqir Iske Meqabir transliterated various ways by Haddis Alemayehu 1909 2003 translated into English by Sisay Ayenew with the title Love unto Crypt published in 2005 ISBN 978 1 4184 9182 6 Rastafari movement EditThe word Rastafari comes from Ras Tafari the pre regnal title of Haile Selassie composed of the Amharic words Ras literally Head an Ethiopian title equivalent to duke and Haile Selassie s pre regnal name Tafari 54 Many Rastafarians learn Amharic as a second language as they consider it to be sacred After Haile Selassie s 1966 visit to Jamaica study circles in Amharic were organized in Jamaica as part of the ongoing exploration of Pan African identity and culture 55 Various reggae artists in the 1970s including Ras Michael Lincoln Thompson and Misty in Roots have sung in Amharic thus bringing the language to a wider audience The Abyssinians a reggae group have also used Amharic most notably in the song Satta Massagana The title was believed to mean give thanks however this phrase means he thanked or he praised as saṭṭa means he gave and amassagana thanks or praise The correct way to say give thanks in Amharic is one word misgana The word satta has become a common expression in the Rastafari dialect of English Iyaric meaning to sit down and partake 56 Software EditAmharic is supported on most major Linux distributions including Fedora and Ubuntu The Amharic script is included in Unicode in the Ethiopic block U 1200 U 137F Nyala font is included on Windows 7 see YouTube video 57 and Vista Amharic Language Interface Pack 58 to display and edit using the Amharic Script In February 2010 Microsoft released its Windows Vista operating system in Amharic enabling Amharic speakers to use its operating system in their language Google added Amharic to its Language Tools 59 which allows typing Amharic Script online without an Amharic Keyboard Since 2004 Wikipedia has had an Amharic language Wiki that uses Ethiopic script See also EditHelp IPA AmharicReferences EditCitations Edit a b c Eberhard David M Simons Gary F Fennig Charles D eds 2021 Amharic Ethnologue Languages of the World Eighteenth ed Dallas Texas SIL International Retrieved 2 March 2021 Morgan Mike 9 April 2010 Complexities of Ethiopian Sign Language Contact Phenomena amp Implications for AAU L Alliance francaise et le Centre Francais des Etudes Ethiopiennes Retrieved 3 June 2017 a b Shaban Abdurahman One to five Ethiopia gets four new federal working languages Africa News Laurie Bauer 2007 The Linguistics Student s Handbook Edinburgh Collins English Dictionary 2003 Random House Kernerman Webster s College Dictionary 2010 Amharic Oxford English Dictionary Online ed Oxford University Press Subscription or participating institution membership required Amharic Merriam Webster Dictionary Amharic dictionary com Retrieved 10 August 2013 Meyer Ronny 2011 The Role of Amharic as a National Language and an African lingua franca In Stefan Weninger ed The Semitic Languages Berlin De Gruyter Mouton pp 1212 1220 Gebremichael M 2011 Federalism and conflict management in Ethiopia case study of Benishangul Gumuz Regional State PhD United Kingdom University of Bradford hdl 10454 5388 Amharic Ethnologue Retrieved 21 December 2022 Amharic Ethnologue 19 November 2019 Retrieved 27 April 2021 The world factbook cia gov 2 March 2022 a b Adugna Gabe Research Language Learning Amharic Home library bu edu Retrieved 8 December 2021 Amharic alphabet pronunciation and language www omniglot com Retrieved 26 July 2017 Mohammad Hassan The Oromo of Ethiopia pp 3 The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia Essays in History and Social Anthropology Donham Donald Donham Lecturer in Social Anthropology Wendy James Dr PhD Former Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Christopher Clapham Patrick Manning CUP Archive Sep 4 1986 p 11 https books google com books id dvk8AAAAIAAJ amp q Lisane amharic v snippet amp q Lisane 20amharic amp f false Layers of Time A History of Ethiopia Paul B Henze November 18th 2008 p 78 https books google com books id 3VYBDgAAQBAJ amp q Lisane v snippet amp q Lisane amp f false ETHIOPIA TO ADD 4 MORE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES TO FOSTER UNITY Ventures Africa Ventures 4 March 2020 Retrieved 2 February 2021 Ethiopia is adding four more official languages to Amharic as political instability mounts Nazret Nazret Retrieved 2 February 2021 Meyer Ronny 2006 Amharic as lingua franca in Ethiopia Lissan Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 20 1 2 117 131 via Academia edu Teferra Anbessa 2013 Amharic Political and social effects on English loan words In Rosenhouse Judith Kowner Rotem eds Globally Speaking Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages Multilingual Matters p 165 Central Statistical Agency 2010 Population and Housing Census 2007 Report National Accessed 13 December 2016 Israel s Ethiopian Jews keep ancient language alive in prayer Al Monitor 29 June 2017 Retrieved 26 July 2017 Language Access Act Fact Sheet PDF 5 October 2011 Archived PDF from the original on 19 September 2015 Retrieved 11 October 2016 a b Levine Donald N 2014 Greater Ethiopia The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society University of Chicago Press pp 27 28 ISBN 978 0 226 22967 6 The analysis of linguistic distributions suggests that the proto Ethiopians of the third millennium B C spoke languages derived from a single stock that is known as Hamito Semitic or Afro Asiatic This ancestral language probably originated in the eastern Sahara before the desiccation of that region the homeland of Afro Asiatic may have been in southwest Ethiopia Wherever the origins of Afro Asiatic it seems clear that peoples speaking proto Cushitic and proto Omotic separated as groups with distinct languages by the fifth or fourth millennium BC and began peopling the Ethiopian plateaus not long after Proto Semitic separated at about the same time or somewhat earlier and passed over into Asia Minor it seems reasonable to follow I M Diakonoff in assuming that the Semitic speakers moved from the Sahara across the Nile Delta over Sinai so that the presence of Semitic speaking populations in Ethiopia must be attributed to a return movement of Semitic speakers into Africa from South Arabia As a base line for reconstructing the history of Greater Ethiopia then we may consider it plausible that by the end of the third millenium B C its main inhabitants were dark skinned Caucasoid or Afro Mediterranean peoples practicing rudimentary forms of agriculture and animal husbandry and speaking three branches of Afro Asiatic Semitic Cushitic and Omotic Appiah Anthony Henry Louis Gates 2010 Encyclopedia of Africa Oxford University Press p 96 ISBN 978 0 19 533770 9 Kebede Messay 2003 Eurocentrism and Ethiopian Historiography Deconstructing Semitization University of Dayton Department of Philosophy International Journal of Ethiopian Studies Tsehai Publishers 1 1 19 via JSTOR Alemu Daniel E 2007 Re imagining the Horn African Renaissance 4 1 56 64 via Ingenta a b Meyer Ronny 2011 Amharic In Weninger Stefan ed The Semitic Languages An International Handbook Walter De Gruyter pp 1178 1212 ISBN 9783110251586 Edzard Lutz 2019 Amharic In John Huehnergard Naʽama Pat El eds The Semitic Languages London Routledge pp 202 226 a b Hetzron Robert 1972 Ethiopian Semitic Studies in Classification Manchester University Press p 36 ISBN 9780719011238 Fage J D Oliver Roland Anthony 1975 The Cambridge History of Africa From c 500 B C to A D 1050 Cambridge University Press p 126 ISBN 9780521209816 Hetzron Robert 1972 Ethiopian Semitic Studies in Classification Manchester University Press pp 36 87 88 ISBN 9780719011238 Appleyard David Amharic History and dialectology of Amharic Encyclopedia Aethopica Vol 1 p 235 Butts Aaron Michael 2015 Semitic languages in contact Leiden Boston Brill pp 18 21 ISBN 9789004300156 OCLC 1083204409 Amhara Definition History amp Culture Britannica www britannica com Retrieved 17 April 2022 Hetzron Robert 1972 Ethiopian Semitic Studies in Classification Manchester University Press p 88 ISBN 9780719011238 Demeke Girma 2014 The Origin of Amharic The Red Sea Press pp 45 52 ISBN 978 1 56902 379 2 OCLC 824502290 Prunier Gerard Ficquet Eloi eds 2015 Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia Monarchy Revolution and the Legacy of Meles Zenawi London C Hurst amp Co p 19 ISBN 9781849042611 Hetzron Robert 1972 Ethiopian Semitic Studies in Classification Manchester University Press p 124 ISBN 9780719011238 Demeke Girma 2014 The Origin of Amharic The Red Sea Press pp 15 133 138 ISBN 978 1 56902 379 2 OCLC 824502290 Butts Aaron Michael 2015 Semitic languages in contact Leiden Boston Brill p 22 ISBN 9789004300156 OCLC 1083204409 Tamrat Taddesse 1972 Church and state in Ethiopia 1270 1527 Clarendon Press pp 34 38 ISBN 978 1 59907 039 1 OCLC 783536291 Demeke Girma 2014 The Origin of Amharic The Red Sea Press pp 33 131 137 ISBN 978 1 56902 379 2 OCLC 824502290 Demeke Girma 2014 The Origin of Amharic The Red Sea Press pp 8 54 ISBN 978 1 56902 379 2 OCLC 824502290 Hetzron Robert 1972 Ethiopian Semitic Studies in Classification Manchester University Press pp 22 67 88 ISBN 9780719011238 a b c d Hayward Katrina Hayward Richard J 1999 Amharic Handbook of the IPA Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 44 51 a b Hudson Grover Amharic The World s Major Languages 2009 Print Ed Comrie Bernard Oxon and New York Routledge pp 594 617 ISBN 0 203 30152 8 Daniels Peter T Bright William eds 1996 Ethiopic Writing The World s Writing Systems Oxford University Press Inc p 573 ISBN 978 0 19 507993 7 habesha 28 September 2010 Simple Amharic Sentences Bigaddis Archived from the original on 3 April 2012 Retrieved 18 May 2013 Tefera Anbessa 1999 Differences Between the Amharic Dialects of Gondar and Addis Ababa In Parfitt T Semi E Trevisan eds The Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Israel Studies on the Ethiopian Jews London Curzon Press pp 257 263 ISBN 0 7007 1092 2 Aklilu Amsalu Marcos Habte Mariam 1973 The dialect of Wallo Journal of Ethiopian Studies 11 2 124 29 JSTOR 41988260 Mittwoch Eugen 1907 Proben aus dem amharischen Volksmund Mittheilungen des Seminars fur Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin 10 2 185 241 OCLC 9609265 Kevin O Brien Chang Wayne Chen 1998 Reggae Routes The Story of Jamaican Music Temple University Press pp 242 ISBN 978 1 56639 629 5 Retrieved 2 May 2013 Bernard Collins The Abyssinians Interview Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine Published 4 November 2011 by Jah Rebel Retrieved 4 May 2013 SNWMF 2005 Performers Snwmf com Retrieved 4 March 2012 Amharic Keyboard for Windows Vista YouTube 1 February 2009 Archived from the original on 30 October 2021 Retrieved 10 August 2013 የዳውንሎድ ዝርዝር Windows Vista LIP Microsoft com 29 January 2010 Retrieved 10 August 2013 Google Retrieved 4 March 2012 Grammar Edit Ludolf Hiob 1698 Grammatica Linguae Amharicae Frankfort Abraham Roy Clive 1968 The Principles of Amharic Occasional Publication Institute of African Studies University of Ibadan rewritten version of A modern grammar of spoken Amharic 1941 Afevork Ghevre Jesus 1905 Grammatica della lingua amarica metodo pratico per l insegnamento R Accademia dei Lincei Afevork Ghevre Jesus 1911 Il verbo amarico Roma Amsalu Aklilu amp Demissie Manahlot 1990 T iru ye Amarinnya Dirset Indet Yale New An Amharic grammar in Amharic Anbessa Teferra and Grover Hudson 2007 Essentials of Amharic Cologne Rudiger Koppe Verlag Appleyard David 1994 Colloquial Amharic Routledge ISBN 0 415 10003 8 Carl Hubert Armbruster 1908 Initia amharica an Introduction to Spoken Amharic The University Press Baye Yimam 2007 Amharic Grammar Second Edition Addis Ababa University Ethiopia Bender M Lionel 1974 Phoneme frequencies in Amharic Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12 1 19 24 Bender M Lionel and Hailu Fulass 1978 Amharic verb morphology Committee on Ethiopian Studies monograph 7 East Lansing African Studies Center Michigan State University Bennet M E 1978 Stratificational Approaches to Amharic Phonology PhD thesis Ann Arbor Michigan State University Cohen Marcel 1936 Traite de langue amharique Paris Institut d Ethnographie Cohen Marcel 1939 Nouvelles etudes d ethiopien merdional Paris Champion Dawkins C H 1960 1969 The Fundamentals of Amharic Addis Ababa Kapeliuk Olga 1988 Nominalization in Amharic Stuttgart F Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden ISBN 3 515 04512 0 Kapeliuk Olga 1994 Syntax of the noun in Amharic Wiesbaden Harrassowitz ISBN 3 447 03406 8 Lykowska Laura 1998 Gramatyka jezyka amharskiego Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog ISBN 83 86483 60 1 Leslau Wolf 1995 Reference Grammar of Amharic Harrassowitz Wiesbaden ISBN 3 447 03372 X Praetorius Franz 1879 Die amharische Sprache Halle Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses Dictionaries Edit Abbadie Antoine d 1881 Dictionnaire de la langue amarinna Actes de la Societe philologique t 10 Paris Amsalu Aklilu 1973 English Amharic dictionary Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 572264 7 Baeteman J E 1929 Dictionnaire amarigna francais Dire Daoua Gankin E B 1969 Amxarsko russkij slovar Pod redaktsiej Kassa Gabra Heywat Moskva Izdatel stvo Sovetskaja Entsiklopedija Guidi I 1901 Vocabolario amarico italiano Roma Isenberg Karl Wilhelm 1841 Dictionary of the Amharic language Amharic and English Englisch and Amharic Church Missionary Society Retrieved 25 August 2012 Guidi I 1940 Supplemento al Vocabolario amarico italiano compilato con il concorso di Francesco Gallina ed Enrico Cerulli Roma Kane Thomas L 1990 Amharic English Dictionary 2 vols Wiesbaden Otto Harrassowitz ISBN 3 447 02871 8 Leslau Wolf 1976 Concise Amharic Dictionary Reissue edition 1996 Berkeley and Los Angeles University of California Press ISBN 0 520 20501 4 Tasamma Habta Mikael Geṣṣew 1953 Ethiopian calendar Kasate Berhan Tasamma Ya Amarenna mazgaba qalat Addis Ababa Artistic External links Edit Amharic language edition of Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Amharic For a list of words relating to Amharic see the Amharic category of words in Wiktionary the free dictionary Wikimedia Commons has media related to Amharic language Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Amharic Amharic Keyboard online and offline too type 1 and type 2 Fonts for Geʽez script Noto Sans Ethiopic multiple weights and widths Noto Serif Ethiopic multiple weights and widths Abyssinica SIL Character set support Selected Annotated Bibliography on Amharic by Grover Hudson at the Michigan State University website US State Dept FSI Amharic course Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Amharic amp oldid 1130503115, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.