Bible translations into Geʽez , an ancient South Semitic language of the Ethiopian branch, date back to the 6th century at least, making them one of the world's oldest Bible translations.
58-738: Translations of the Bible in Ge'ez , in a predecessor of the Ge'ez script which did not possess vowels, were created between the 5th and 7th century, soon after the Christianization of Ethiopia in the 4th century. The milestones of the modern editions were the Roman edition of the New Testament in 1548 edited by Tasfa Seyon , which is the editio princeps , and the critical edition of the New Testament by Thomas P. Platt in 1830 (his edition of
116-463: A 71% lexical similarity to Ge'ez, while Tigrinya had a 68% lexical similarity to Geʽez, followed by Amharic at 62%. Most linguists believe that Geʽez does not constitute a common ancestor of modern Ethio-Semitic languages but became a separate language early on from another hypothetical unattested common language. Historically, /ɨ/ has a basic correspondence with Proto-Semitic short *i and *u , /æ ~ ɐ/ with short *a ,
174-677: A date of c. 530–660. The Garima Gospels is also thought to be the oldest surviving Geʽez manuscript. Ge'ez Bible manuscripts existed until at least the late 17th century. In 2009, the Ethiopian Catholic Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church associated themselves with the Bible Society of Ethiopia to produce a printed version of the Bible in Ge'ez. The New Testament
232-465: A daughter proto-language or in Proto-Semitic itself. Some thus suggest that weakened *š̠ may have been a separate phoneme in Proto-Semitic. Proto-Semitic is reconstructed as having non-phonemic stress on the third mora counted from the end of the word, i.e. on the second syllable from the end, if it has the structure CVC or CVː (where C is any consonant and V is any vowel), or on
290-521: A language has such sounds, it nearly always has [sʼ] so if *ṣ was actually affricate [tsʼ] , it would be extremely unusual if *θ̣ ṣ́ was fricative [θʼ ɬʼ] rather than affricate [t͡θʼ t͡ɬʼ] . According to Rodinson (1981) and Weninger (1998), the Greek placename Mátlia , with tl used to render Ge'ez ḍ (Proto-Semitic *ṣ́ ), is "clear proof" that this sound was affricated in Ge'ez and quite possibly in Proto-Semitic as well. The evidence for
348-572: A merger of the two to [s] occurs in various other languages such as Arabic and Ethiopian Semitic. On the other hand, Kogan has suggested that the initial merged s in Arabic was actually a "hissing-hushing sibilant", presumably something like [ɕ] (or a "retracted sibilant"), which did not become [s] until later. That would suggest a value closer to [ɕ] (or a "retracted sibilant") or [ʃ] for Proto-Semitic *š since [t͡s] and [s] would almost certainly merge directly to [s]. Furthermore, there
406-508: A relatively close object and those showing a more distant one. Nonetheless, it is very difficult to reconstruct Proto-Semitic forms on the basis of the demonstratives of the individual Semitic languages. A series of interrogative pronouns are reconstructed for Proto-Semitic: *man ‘who’, *mā ‘what’ and *’ayyu ‘of what kind’ (derived from *’ay ‘where’). Reconstruction of the cardinal numerals from one to ten (masculine): All nouns from one to ten were declined as singular nouns with
464-776: Is based on triads of related voiceless , voiced and " emphatic " consonants. Five such triads are reconstructed in Proto-Semitic: The probable phonetic realization of most consonants is straightforward and is indicated in the table with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Two subsets of consonants, however, deserve further comment. The sounds notated here as " emphatic consonants " occur in nearly all Semitic languages as well as in most other Afroasiatic languages, and they are generally reconstructed as glottalization in Proto-Semitic. Thus, *ṭ, for example, represents [tʼ] . See below for
522-526: Is certain although few modern languages preserve the sounds. The pronunciation of *ś ṣ́ as [ɬ ɬʼ] is still maintained in the Modern South Arabian languages (such as Mehri ), and evidence of a former lateral pronunciation is evident in a number of other languages. For example, Biblical Hebrew baśam was borrowed into Ancient Greek as balsamon (hence English "balsam"), and the 8th-century Arab grammarian Sibawayh explicitly described
580-467: Is debated: The precise sound of the Proto-Semitic fricatives, notably of *š , *ś , *s and *ṣ , remains a perplexing problem, and there are various systems of notation to describe them. The notation given here is traditional and is based on their pronunciation in Hebrew, which has traditionally been extrapolated to Proto-Semitic. The notation *s₁ , *s₂ , *s₃ is found primarily in
638-404: Is even a tendency for nouns to follow the gender of the noun with a corresponding meaning in Greek. There are two numbers, singular and plural. The plural can be constructed either by suffixing ኣት -āt to a word (regardless of gender, but often ኣን -ān if it is a male human noun), or by using an internal plural . Nouns also have two cases: the nominative, which is not marked, and
SECTION 10
#1732776706803696-486: Is lost when a plural noun with a consonant-final stem has a pronoun suffix attached (generally replaced by the added -i- , as in -i-hu , "his"), thereby losing the case/state distinction, but the distinction may be retained in the case of consonant-final singular nouns. Furthermore, suffix pronouns may or may not attract stress to themselves. In the following table, pronouns without a stress mark (an acute) are not stressed, and vowel-initial suffixes have also been given
754-406: Is more naturally interpreted as deaffrication. Evidence for *š as /s/ also exists but is somewhat less clear. It has been suggested that it is cross-linguistically rare for languages with a single sibilant fricative to have [ʃ] as the sound and that [s] is more likely. Similarly, the use of Phoenician 𐤔 *š , as the source of Greek Σ s , seems easiest to explain if the phoneme had
812-433: Is pronounced exactly the same as ḥ in the traditional pronunciation. Though the use of a different letter shows that it must originally have had some other pronunciation, what that pronunciation was is not certain. The chart below lists /ɬ/ and /t͡ɬʼ/ as possible values for ś ( ሠ ) and ḍ ( ፀ ) respectively. It also lists /χ/ as a possible value for ḫ ( ኀ ). These values are tentative, but based on
870-400: Is stressed on the ultima (e.g. ንግር nəgə́r , "speak!"), and that, in some patterns, words can be stressed on the third-, fourth- or even fifth-to-last syllable (e.g. በረከተ bárakata ). Due to the high predictability of stress location in most words, textbooks, dictionaries and grammars generally do not mark it. Minimal pairs do exist, however, such as yənaggərā́ ("he speaks to her", with
928-916: Is the reconstructed proto-language common ancestor to the Semitic language family . There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic Urheimat : scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant , the Sahara , the Horn of Africa , the Arabian Peninsula , or northern Africa. The Semitic language family is considered part of the broader macro-family of Afroasiatic languages . The earliest attestations of any Semitic language are in Akkadian , dating to around
986-480: Is thought to have been from Akkad. The earliest text fragments of West Semitic are snake spells in Egyptian pyramid texts, dated around the mid-third millennium BC. Proto-Semitic itself must have been spoken before the emergence of its daughters, so some time before the earliest attestation of Akkadian, and sufficiently long so for the changes leading from it to Akkadian to have taken place, which would place it in
1044-585: Is various evidence to suggest that the sound [ʃ] for *š existed while *s was still [ts] . Examples are the Southern Old Babylonian form of Akkadian, which evidently had [ʃ] along with [t͡s] as well as Egyptian transcriptions of early Canaanite words in which *š s are rendered as š ṯ . ( ṯ is an affricate [t͡ʃ] and the consensus interpretation of š is [ʃ] , as in Modern Coptic. ) Diem (1974) suggested that
1102-618: The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church , the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church , Ethiopian Catholic Church , Eritrean Catholic Church , and the Beta Israel Jewish community. Hawulti Obelisk is an ancient pre-Aksumite Obelisk located in Matara , Eritrea. The monument dates to the early Aksumite period and bears an example of the ancient Geʽez script. In one study, Tigre was found to have
1160-602: The Horn of Africa between 1500 and 500 BC. Proto-Semitic had a simple vowel system, with three qualities *a, *i, *u, and phonemic vowel length, conventionally indicated by a macron: *ā, *ī, *ū. This system is preserved in Classical Arabic. The reconstruction of Proto-Semitic was originally based primarily on Arabic , whose phonology and morphology (particularly in Classical Arabic ) is extremely conservative, and which preserves as contrastive 28 out of
1218-426: The se letter used for spelling the word nigūś "king") is reconstructed as descended from a Proto-Semitic voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ] . Like Arabic, Geʽez merged Proto-Semitic š and s in ሰ (also called se-isat : the se letter used for spelling the word isāt "fire"). Apart from this, Geʽez phonology is comparably conservative; the only other Proto-Semitic phonological contrasts lost may be
SECTION 20
#17327767068031276-518: The 24th to 23rd centuries BC (see Sargon of Akkad ) and the Eblaite language , but earlier evidence of Akkadian comes from personal names in Sumerian texts from the first half of the third millennium BC. One of the earliest known Akkadian inscriptions was found on a bowl at Ur , addressed to the very early pre-Sargonic king Meskiagnunna of Ur ( c. 2485 –2450 BC) by his queen Gan-saman, who
1334-485: The Arabic descendant of *ṣ́ , now pronounced [dˤ] in the standard pronunciation or [ðˤ] in Bedouin-influenced dialects, as a pharyngealized voiced lateral fricative [ɮˤ] . (Compare Spanish alcalde , from Andalusian Arabic اَلْقَاضِي al-qāḍī "judge".) The primary disagreements concern whether the sounds were actually fricatives in Proto-Semitic or whether some were affricates, and whether
1392-544: The Canaanite sound change of *θ > *š would be more natural if *š was [s] than if it was [ʃ] . However, Kogan argues that, because *s was [ts] at the time, the change from *θ to *š is the most likely merger, regardless of the exact pronunciation of *š while the shift was underway. Evidence for the affricate nature of the non-sibilants is based mostly on internal considerations. Ejective fricatives are quite rare cross-linguistically, and when
1450-485: The Geʽez four Gospels was first published in 1826). The Garima Gospels are the oldest translation of the Bible in Ge'ez and the world's earliest complete illustrated Christian manuscript . Monastic tradition holds that they were composed close to the year 500, a date supported by recent radiocarbon analysis ; samples from Garima 2 proposed a date of c. 390–570, while counterpart dating of samples from Garima 1 proposed
1508-519: The Levant around 3750 BC, with a later single introduction from South Arabia into the Horn of Africa around 800 BC. This statistical analysis could not, however, estimate when or where the ancestor of all Semitic languages diverged from Afroasiatic. It thus neither contradicts nor confirms the hypothesis that the divergence of ancestral Semitic from Afroasiatic occurred in Africa. In another variant of
1566-487: The accusative, which is marked with final -a . As in other Semitic languages, there are at least two "states", absolute (unmarked) and construct (marked with -a as well). As in Classical/Standard Arabic , singular and plural nouns often take the same final inflectional affixes for case and state, as number morphology is achieved via attaching a suffix to the stem and/or an internal change in
1624-414: The affricate interpretation of Akkadian s z ṣ is generally accepted. There is also a good deal of internal evidence in early Akkadian for affricate realizations of s z ṣ . Examples are that underlying || *t, *d, *ṭ + *š || were realized as ss , which is more natural if the law was phonetically || *t, *d, *ṭ + *s || > [tt͡s] , and that *s *z *ṣ shift to *š before *t , which
1682-465: The base በ /b/ in the script. Noun phrases have the following overall order: በዛ ba-zā in-this: F ሀገር hagar city በዛ ሀገር ba-zā hagar in-this:F city in this city ንጉሥ nəguś king ክቡር kəbur glorious ንጉሥ ክቡር nəguś kəbur king glorious a/the glorious king Adjectives and determiners agree with the noun in gender and number: ዛቲ zāti this: FEM ንግሥት Proto-Semitic Proto-Semitic
1740-483: The contrast here represented as a/ā is represented as ä/a. Geʽez is transliterated according to the following system (see the phoneme table below for IPA values): Because Geʽez is no longer spoken in daily life by large communities, the early pronunciation of some consonants is not completely certain. Gragg writes that "[t]he consonants corresponding to the graphemes ś (Geʽez ሠ ) and ḍ (Geʽez ፀ ) have merged with ሰ and ጸ respectively in
1798-516: The conventional transcription and still maintained by some of the authors in the field is that *š was a voiceless postalveolar fricative ( [ʃ] ), *s was a voiceless alveolar sibilant ( [s] ) and *ś was a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative ( [ɬ] ). Accordingly, *ṣ is seen as an emphatic version of *s ( [sʼ] ) *z as a voiced version of it ( [z] ) and *ṣ́ as an emphatic version of *ś ( [ɬʼ] ). The reconstruction of *ś ṣ́ as lateral fricatives (or affricates)
Bible translations into Geʽez - Misplaced Pages Continue
1856-418: The evidence for the "maximal extension" positions that extend affricate interpretations to non-sibilant "fricatives" is largely structural because of both the relative rarity of the interdentals and lateral obstruents among the attested Semitic language and the even greater rarity of such sounds among the various languages in which Semitic words were transcribed. As a result, even when the sounds were transcribed,
1914-402: The evident 29 consonantal phonemes. Thus, the phonemic inventory of reconstructed Proto-Semitic is very similar to that of Arabic, with only one phoneme fewer in Arabic than in reconstructed Proto-Semitic, with *s and *š merging into Arabic / s / ⟨ س ⟩ and *ś becoming Arabic / ʃ / ⟨ ش ⟩ . As such, Proto-Semitic is generally reconstructed as having
1972-492: The first and third consonants were identical were extremely rare. Three cases are reconstructed: nominative (marked by *-u ), genitive (marked by *-i ), accusative (marked by *-a ). There were two genders: masculine (marked by a zero morpheme) and feminine (marked by *-at / *-t and *-ah / -ā ). The feminine marker was placed after the root, but before the ending, e.g.: *ba‘l- ‘lord, master’ > *ba‘lat- ‘lady, mistress’, *bin- ‘son’ > *bint- ‘daughter’. There
2030-473: The following phonemes (as usually transcribed in Semitology): *ʼ , ˀ [ ʔ ] The reconstructed phonemes *s *z *ṣ *ś *ṣ́ *ṯ̣, which are shown to be phonetically affricates in the table above, may also be interpreted as fricatives ( /s z sʼ ɬ ɬʼ θʼ/ ), as discussed below. This was the traditional reconstruction and is reflected in the choice of signs. The Proto-Semitic consonant system
2088-442: The following patterns. Quadriconsonantal and some triconsonantal nouns follow the following pattern. Triconsonantal nouns that take this pattern must have at least one "long" vowel (namely /i e o u/ ). In the independent pronouns, gender is not distinguished in the 1st person, and case is only distinguished in the 3rd person singular. Suffix pronouns attach at the end of a noun, preposition or verb. The accusative/construct -a
2146-500: The fourth millennium BC or earlier. Since all modern Semitic languages can be traced back to a common ancestor, Semiticists have placed importance on locating the Urheimat of the Proto-Semitic language. The Urheimat of the Proto-Semitic language may be considered within the context of the larger Afro-Asiatic family to which it belongs. The previously popular hypothesis of an Arabian Urheimat has been largely abandoned since
2204-453: The fricatives/affricates. In modern Semitic languages, emphatics are variously realized as pharyngealized ( Arabic , Aramaic , Tiberian Hebrew (such as [tˤ] ), glottalized ( Ethiopian Semitic languages , Modern South Arabian languages , such as [tʼ] ), or as tenuis consonants ( Turoyo language of Tur Abdin such as [t˭] ); Ashkenazi Hebrew and Maltese are exceptions and emphatics merge into plain consonants in various ways under
2262-399: The influence of Indo-European languages ( Sicilian for Maltese, various languages for Hebrew). An emphatic labial *ṗ occurs in some Semitic languages, but it is unclear whether it was a phoneme in Proto-Semitic. The reconstruction of Proto-Semitic has nine fricative sounds that are reflected usually as sibilants in later languages, but whether all were already sibilants in Proto-Semitic
2320-420: The interdental fricatives and ghayn . There is no evidence within the script of stress rules in the ancient period, but stress patterns exist within the liturgical tradition(s). Accounts of these patterns are, however, contradictory. One early 20th-century account may be broadly summarized as follows: As one example of a discrepancy, a different late 19th-century account says the masculine singular imperative
2378-402: The literature on Old South Arabian , but more recently, it has been used by some authors to discuss Proto-Semitic to express a noncommittal view of the pronunciation of the sounds. However, the older transcription remains predominant in most literature, often even among scholars who either disagree with the traditional interpretation or remain noncommittal. The traditional view, as expressed in
Bible translations into Geʽez - Misplaced Pages Continue
2436-403: The most maximal interpretation, with all the interdentals and lateral obstruents being affricates, appears to be mostly structural: the system would be more symmetric if reconstructed that way. The shift of *š to h occurred in most Semitic languages (other than Akkadian, Minaean , Qatabanian ) in grammatical and pronominal morphemes, and it is unclear whether reduction of *š began in
2494-492: The noun: Like most of its daughter languages, Proto-Semitic has one free pronoun set, and case-marked bound sets of enclitic pronouns. Genitive case and accusative case are only distinguished in the first person. For many pronouns, the final vowel is reconstructed with long and short positional variants; this is conventionally indicated by a combined macron and breve on the vowel (e.g. ā̆ ). The Semitic demonstrative pronouns are usually divided into two series: those showing
2552-564: The phonological system represented by the traditional pronunciation—and indeed in all modern Ethiopian Semitic. ... There is, however, no evidence either in the tradition or in Ethiopian Semitic [for] what value these consonants may have had in Geʽ;ez." A similar problem is found for the consonant transliterated ḫ . Gragg notes that it corresponds in etymology to velar or uvular fricatives in other Semitic languages, but it
2610-447: The pronoun suffix -(h)ā́ "her") vs. yənaggə́rā ("they speak", feminine plural), both written ይነግራ . Geʽez distinguishes two genders, masculine and feminine, the latter of which is sometimes marked with the suffix ት -t , e.g. እኅት ʼəxt ("sister"). These are less strongly distinguished than in other Semitic languages, as many nouns not denoting humans can be used in either gender: in translated Christian texts there
2668-790: The reconstructed Proto-Semitic consonants that they are descended from. The following table presents the consonants of the Geʽez language. The reconstructed phonetic value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, followed by its representation in the Geʽez script and scholarly transliteration. Geʽez consonants have a triple opposition between voiceless, voiced, and ejective (or emphatic ) obstruents. The Proto-Semitic "emphasis" in Geʽez has been generalized to include emphatic p̣ /pʼ/ . Geʽez has phonologized labiovelars , descending from Proto-Semitic biphonemes. Geʽez ś ሠ Sawt (in Amharic, also called śe-nigūś , i.e.
2726-493: The region could not have supported massive waves of emigration before the domestication of camels in the 2nd millennium BC. There is also evidence that Mesopotamia and adjoining areas of modern Syria were originally inhabited by a non-Semitic population. That is suggested by non-Semitic toponyms preserved in Akkadian and Eblaite. A Bayesian analysis performed in 2009 suggests an origin for all known Semitic languages in
2784-494: The resulting transcriptions may be difficult to interpret clearly. The narrowest affricate view (only *ṣ was an affricate [t͡sʼ] ) is the most accepted one. The affricate pronunciation is directly attested in the modern Ethiopic languages and Modern Hebrew, as mentioned above, but also in ancient transcriptions of numerous Semitic languages in various other languages: The "maximal affricate" view, applied only to sibilants, also has transcriptional evidence. According to Kogan,
2842-477: The sound designated *š was pronounced [ʃ] (or similar) in Proto-Semitic, as the traditional view posits, or had the value of [s] . The issue of the nature of the "emphatic" consonants, discussed above, is partly related (but partly orthogonal) to the issues here as well. With respect to the traditional view, there are two dimensions of "minimal" and "maximal" modifications made: Affricates in Proto-Semitic were proposed early on but met little acceptance until
2900-403: The sound of [s] at the time. The occurrence of [ʃ] for *š in a number of separate modern Semitic languages (such as Neo-Aramaic , Modern South Arabian , most Biblical Hebrew reading traditions) and Old Babylonian Akkadian is then suggested to result from a push-type chain shift , and the change from [t͡s] to [s] "pushes" [s] out of the way to [ʃ] in the languages in question, and
2958-705: The stem. There is some morphological interaction between consonant-final nouns and a pronoun suffix (see the table of suffix pronouns below). For example, when followed by የ -ya ("my"), in both nominative and accusative the resulting form is ሊቅየ liqə́ya (i.e. the accusative is not * ሊቀየ *liqáya ), but with ከ -ka ("your", masculine singular) there's a distinction between nominative ሊቅከ liqə́ka and accusative ሊቀከ liqáka , and similarly with -hu ("his") between nominative ሊቁ liqú (< *liq-ə-hu ) and accusative ሊቆ liqó (< *liqa-hu ). Internal plurals follow certain patterns. Triconsonantal nouns follow one of
SECTION 50
#17327767068033016-715: The theory, the earliest wave of Semitic speakers entered the Fertile Crescent via the Levant and eventually founded the Akkadian Empire . Their relatives, the Amorites , followed them and settled Syria before 2500 BC. Late Bronze Age collapse in Israel led the South Semites to move southwards where they settled the highlands of Yemen after the 20th century BC until those crossed Bab-el-Mandeb to
3074-411: The third syllable from the end, if the second one had the structure CV . Proto-Semitic allowed only syllables of the structures CVC , CVː , or CV . It did not permit word-final clusters of two or more consonants, clusters of three or more consonants, hiatus of two or more vowels, or long vowels in closed syllables. Most roots consisted of three consonants. However, it appears that historically
3132-415: The three-consonant roots had developed from two-consonant ones (this is suggested by evidence from internal as well as external reconstruction). To construct a given grammatical form, certain vowels were inserted between the consonants of the root. There were certain restrictions on the structure of the root: it was impossible to have roots where the first and second consonants were identical, and roots where
3190-492: The vowels /i, u, a/ with Proto-Semitic long *ī, *ū, *ā respectively, and /e, o/ with the Proto-Semitic diphthongs *ay and *aw . In Geʽez there still exist many alternations between /o/ and /aw/ , less so between /e/ and /aj/ , e.g. ተሎኩ taloku ~ ተለውኩ talawku ("I followed"). In the transcription employed by the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , which is widely employed in academia,
3248-406: The work of Alice Faber (1981), who challenged the older approach. The Semitic languages that have survived often have fricatives for these consonants. However, Ethiopic languages and Modern Hebrew, in many reading traditions, have an affricate for *ṣ . The evidence for the various affricate interpretations of the sibilants is direct evidence from transcriptions and structural evidence. However,
3306-418: Was also a small group of feminine nouns that didn't have formal markers: *’imm- ‘mother’, *laxir- ‘ewe’, *’atān- ‘she-donkey’, *‘ayn- ‘eye’, *birk- ‘knee’ There were three numbers: singular, plural and dual (only in nouns ). There were two ways to mark the plural: The dual was formed by means of the markers *-ā in the nominative and *-āy in the genitive and accusative. The endings of
3364-428: Was released in 2017. Ge%27ez Geʽez ( / ˈ ɡ iː ɛ z / or / ɡ iː ˈ ɛ z / ; ግዕዝ Gəʽ(ə)z IPA: [ˈɡɨʕ(ɨ)z] , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic ) is an ancient South Semitic language . The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea . Today, Geʽez is used as the main liturgical language of
#802197