Ge'ez script   

Origins

The Ge'ez or Ethiopic script possibly developed from the Sabaean/Minean script. The earliest known inscriptions in the Ge'ez script date to the 5th century BC. At first the script represented only consonants. Vowel indication started to appear in 4th century AD during the reign of king Ezana, though might have developed at a earlier date.

Notable Features

• Type of writing system: abugida.
• Writing direction: left to right in horizontal lines.
• Each symbol represents a syllable consisting of a consonant plus a vowel. The basic signs are modified in a number of different ways to indicate the various vowels.
• There is no standard way of transliterating the Ge'ez script into the Latin alphabet.

Used to write

Ge'ez, the classical language of Ethiopia which is still used as a liturgical language by Ethiopian christians and the Beta Israel Jewish community of Ethiopia.

Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, has about 27 million speakers. It is spoken mainly in North Central Ethiopia. There are Amharic speakers in a number of other countries, particularly in Egypt, Israel and Sweden.

Afaan Oromo, a Cushitic language spoken by around 17 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Egypt. Since 1991 Oromo has been written with the Latin alphabet.

Tigrinya, a Semitic language with about 6 million speakers in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Israel.

Blin, a Cushitic language with about 70,000 speakers in Eritrea.

Me'en, a Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Ethiopia by about 56,585 people.

The Ge'ez script

Punctuation

Numerals

These numerals developed from the Greek alphabet, possibly via Coptic.

Sample text in Ge'ez

Translation

Word of blessing of Henok, wherewith he blessed the chosen and righteous who would be alive in the day of tribulation for the removal of all wrongdoers and backsliders.
(The first sentence of the Book of Enoch)

Longer sample text in Amharic (Tower of Babel)

  Recommended books

Links

Free Ge'ez fonts
http://www.ethiozena.net/info/faq.html
http://hometown.aol.com/Feedel/Feedel.htm
http://www.geezsoft.com/download.html
http://www.punchdown.org/rvb/email/UniGeez.html

Ge'ez keyboard mapping for Mac OS X, with free unicode font
http://newchelsea.net/papers/tigrinya.zip

Information about the Ge'ez language and script
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge'ez_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge'ez_abugida

Information about the Amharic language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic_language

Dehai Blin Page - online Blin lessons
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~gasmerom/Eritrean_languages/blin/

Amharic-English dictionary
http://www.amharicdictionary.com

Online radio in Amharic, Tigrinya and Afaan Oromo
http://www.ethiozena.net
http://www.ethiopianreporter.com
http://www.voanews.com/horn/amharic_audio.cfm
http://www.dwelle.de/amharic/

Other syllabic alphabets

Ahom, Balinese, Batak, Bengali, Brahmi, Buhid, Burmese, Cham, Dehong Dai, Devanagari, Ge'ez, Gondi, Grantha, Gujarati, Gupta, Gurmukhi (Punjabi), Hanuno'o, Hmong, Javanese, Kannada, Kharosthi, Khmer, Lanna, Lao, Lepcha, Limbu, Lontara/Makasar, Malayalam, Manpuri, Modi, New Tai Lue, Oriya, Pallava, Phags-pa, Ranjana, Redjang, Shan, Sharda, Siddham, Sindhi, Sinhala, Sorang Sompeng, Sourashtra, Soyombo, Sundanese, Syloti Nagri, Tagalog, Tagbanwa, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tocharian, Varang Kshiti

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