58-548: Shewa ( Amharic : ሸዋ ; Oromo : Shawaa ; Somali : Shawa; Arabic : شيوا ), formerly romanized as Shua , Shoa , Showa , Shuwa ( Scioà in Italian ), is a historical region of Ethiopia which was formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire . The modern Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is located at its center. The towns of Debre Berhan , Antsokia , Ankober , Entoto and, after Shewa became
116-523: A holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide. 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
174-524: 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
232-510: A province of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa have all served as the capital of Shewa at various times. Most of northern Shewa, made up of the districts of Menz , Tegulet , Yifat , Menjar and Bulga , is populated by Christian Amharas , while southern Shewa, despite being historically inhabited by Amhara, is currently inhabited by the Gurages , Oromo and Argobba Muslim populations. The monastery of Debre Libanos , founded by Saint Tekle Haymanot ,
290-518: A Muslim stronghold, and burned it. Dawit would then proceed to ravage Adal and lay waste to Sultan Muhammad ibn Azhar ad-Din 's residence in Dakkar . Contemporaries concluded that the Muslim threat to Ethiopia was finally over, so when the diplomatic mission from Portugal arrived at last, Dawit denied that Mateus had the authority to negotiate treaties, ignoring Eleni's counsels. After a stay of six years,
348-433: A man of breeding, of middling stature; they said that he was twenty-three years of age, and he looks like that, his face is round, the eyes large, the nose high in the middle, and his beard is beginning to grow. In presence and state he fully looks like the great lord that he is. A follower of his late father, the monk Gebre Andrias slayed Emir Mahfuz of Adal in 1517 about the same time a Portuguese fleet attacked Zeila ,
406-405: A platform of six steps very richly adorned. He had on his head a high crown of gold and silver, that is to say, one piece of gold and another of silver from the top downwards, and a silver cross in his hand; there was a piece of blue taffeta before his face which covered his mouth and beard, and from time to time they lowered it and the whole of his face appeared, and again they raised it. The Prester
464-751: Is a South Ethio-Semitic language, along with Gurage , Argobba , Harari , and others. Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Ethio-Semitic language and eventually absorbed the Semitic population. Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum . 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. A 7th century southward shift of
522-817: 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 in Ethiopia . 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 . As of 2020, it has over 33,700,000 mother-tongue speakers and more than 25,100,000 second language speakers in 2019, making
580-579: Is an abugida , and the graphemes of the Amharic writing system are called fidäl . It is derived from a modification of the Ge'ez script . 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
638-663: Is because these fidäl originally represented distinct sounds, but phonological changes merged them. 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. 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
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#1732783831704696-501: Is called an abugida ( አቡጊዳ ). 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 specializing in Ethiopian Semitic languages. Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia, language of
754-505: 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 Dawit II Dawit II ( Ge'ez : ዳዊት ; c. 1496 – 2 September 1540), also known by the macaronic name Wanag Segad (ወናግ ሰገድ, to whom
812-414: Is located in the district of Silalish, Shewa Modern Shewa includes the historical Endagabatan province. Shewa first appears in the historical record as part of a Muslim state ( Makhzumi dynasty ), which G. W. B. Huntingford believed was founded in 896, and had its capital at Walalah . In a recent discovery, a team of French archaeologists uncovered three urban centers believed to have been remnants of
870-469: 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 ⟨ə⟩ /ɨ/ and mid-central vowel ⟨ä⟩ /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 . The Amharic script
928-416: 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
986-522: The Abay River to the relative security of Gojjam . Only their failure to capture the royal compound at Amba Geshen slowed the Muslims down. In April 1533, Ahmad once again assembled his troops at Debre Berhan to conquer—or at least ravage—the northern regions of Tigray , Begemder , and Gojjam . Both Ethiopia and Dawit suffered heavily from these assaults. The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion
1044-507: The Adal 's Emir Mahfuz may have given Dawit the appellation "Wanag Segad," which is a combination of Geʽez and the Harari terms. In contrast to previous emperors, Dawit had only one wife, Seble Wongel , whom he married around 1512–13. The couple had eight children: four sons and four daughters. Taking only one wife throughout his life was seen as a Christian act that fit with the ideals of
1102-762: The Armenian , Mateus to Portugal to ask for assistance. However, the Portuguese response did not arrive in Ethiopia until much later, when an embassy led by Dom Rodrigo de Lima arrived at Massawa on 9 April 1520. Traversing the Ethiopian highlands , they did not reach Dawit's camp until 19 October of that year. Francisco Álvares provided a description of the Emperor: We saw the Prester John sitting on
1160-710: The Battle of Shimbra Kure , but failed to destroy the Imam's army. Arab Faqīh states that many Somali on the left flank retreated from the battlefield, with the Ethiopians pursuing them and killing a large number of their men, but that the Harla and the Malassay on the right flank managed to hold their ground. While not a clear victory for the Imam, this battle still proved to the Imam's followers that they could fight and defeat
1218-587: The Church . Although she was well into her seventies, the Empress Mother Eleni stepped in to act as her step-great-grandson's regent until 1516, when he came of age. During this time, she was aware that the neighboring Muslim states were benefitting from the assistance of other, larger Muslim countries like the Ottoman Empire . Eleni sought to neutralize this advantage by dispatching
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#17327838317041276-552: The Egyptian-Ethiopian War , Emperor Yohannes IV , who was angered over Menelik's claim to be the Emperor, marched into Shewa and ravaged the towns. Menelik, realizing that resistance was futile, was forced to submit to Yohannes. Escaping influence from Yohannes, Menelik moved his capital south from Ankober to Mount Entoto in 1884. There, his wife Taytu Betul was attracted to a nearby spring known as Finfinne by
1334-623: The Malassay came and captured most his soldiers, and he was force to flee with a few loyal followers to the mountain of Tchelmefra in the country of Simien . Dawit found refuge in this location but was once again pursued by the Malassay. Upon reaching the Tekezé River , he successfully crossed it and reached Tabr. There, he succeeded in killing Ahmad al-Din, the Adalite governor of Tigray, who had been plundering churches. Shortly after, Dawit
1392-478: The Sinai Peninsula into Asia . A later return movement of peoples from South Arabia would have introduced the Semitic languages to Ethiopia. Based on archaeological evidence, the presence of Semitic speakers in the territory date to some time before 500 BC. Linguistic analysis suggests the presence of Semitic languages in Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC. Levine indicates that by the end of that millennium,
1450-515: The Tulama Oromo , whom he defeated in the early 1820s. He followed this victory by rebuilding Debre Berhan, which had been burned in an Oromo raid, as well as a number of other towns and consolidated his hold by founding a number of fortified villages, like Angolalla , in the Abichu territory. He extended the frontier of Shewa into Bulga and Karayu, to the southeast into Arsi, and as far south as
1508-504: The total number of speakers over 58,800,000. Amharic is the largest, most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo ). Amharic is also the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic ). Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script . The segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units
1566-633: The Abyssinian army was defeated at the Battle of Hubat by Ahmed's warriors. With the death of Sultan Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad in 1520, a young general and imam, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi , consolidated his hold on the Adal Sultanate, making his candidate Umar Din sultan. Shortly before this, the Ottoman Empire had conquered Mamluk Egypt and were looking to expand into the Red Sea region. The Ethiopians had previously stolen firearms from
1624-568: The Ethiopian army. Imam Ahmad Gragn spent the next two years preoccupied beyond the Awash, but returned to attack Ethiopia in 1531, where he scattered the army under the general Eslamu by firing the first cannon in the Horn of Africa. Dawit was forced to withdraw into the Ethiopian highlands and fortify the passes into Bet Amhara ("the House of Amhara"), leaving the territories to the east and south under
1682-469: The Ethiopianist tradition they are often transcribed with a dot below the letter. The notation of central vowels in the Ethiopianist tradition is shown in angled brackets. The voiced bilabial plosive /b/ is phonetically realized as a voiced labial approximant [β̞] medially between sonorants in non- geminated form. The fricative ejective / sʼ / is heard as a fricative ejective [ sʼ ], but
1740-523: The Grave by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice is rare. Punctuation includes the following: One may construct simple Amharic sentences by using a subject and a predicate . Here are a few simple sentences: 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
1798-589: The Mamluks during the reign of Yeshaq I but had not put them to use. In the 1520s, Emperor Lebna Dengel bought two swivel-guns from the Portuguese, as well as fourteen muskets acquired from Turks, he was thus ill equipped for the Ottoman backed invasion in 1527 which included thousands of Turkish and Arab flintlocks and matchlocks. The Imam crossed the Awash River and entered Fatagar in 1528, looting and burning
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1856-416: The Portuguese at last set sail and left a governing class who thought they were securely in control of the situation. As Paul B. Henze notes, "They were mistaken." According to Ethiopian chronicles, two decades into Dawit's ascension, a young man by the name Ahmed Ibrahim had rebelled against the Adal leaders and spread terror in the region. Dawit sent his general Delghan into Adal to confront him however
1914-619: The Sarako tradition through their contact with the Gurage. The Amhara Shewan ruling family was founded in the late 17th century by Negasi Krestos , who consolidated his control around Yifat and extended his territory to the south by conquering Menz , Tegulet and Merhabete from the Oromos. Upon rising to power, Sahle Selassie aligned himself to the Abichu Oromo and turn his attention to
1972-449: The alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language. There are 34 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable. There are also 49 "wa" letters, which form compound sounds involving "w." All together, the alphabet has some 280 letters. Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia. The 2007 census reported that Amharic
2030-640: The boy to Bakarat where he was captured and imprisoned at his mountain stronghold in Amba Mariam . After crushing the Amhara opposition in the province, Tewdoros then turned his attention towards the Oromo and according to Zanab "exterminated all the Gallas, from Debre Berhan to Ankober so that their corpses covered the ground like a carpet." Menelik II , who escaped from Amba Mariam at the end of June 1865 when he
2088-537: 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. Some time after the 9th century AD, Amharic diverged from its closest relative, Argobba , probably due to religious differences as the Argobba adopted Islam. In 1983, Lionel Bender proposed that Amharic may have been constructed as
2146-568: The clans of the Borana, Gombichu and Ada, entered Shewa, they found no-one to stop them, since the children of Sarako had been killed. Enrico Cerulli believes that this tradition is related to the Amhara tradition of an arrogant king, which is attributed to Emperor Dawit II . However, he also notes that Sarako is the Gurage name for Emperor Zara Yaqob , from this he concludes that the Oromo acquired
2204-498: The core inhabitants of Greater Ethiopia would have consisted of dark-skinned agropastoralists speaking Afro-Asiatic languages of the Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic branches. 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. Amharic
2262-522: 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. The appellation of "language of the king" ( Ge'ez : ልሳነ ነጋሢ ; "Lǝssanä nägaśi," Amharic : የነጋሢ ቋንቋ "Yä-nägaśi qʷanqʷa") and its use in
2320-533: The east, and its ancient cities were destroyed. Most of Shewa was overrun by the Oromos during the late 16th century. Its eastern fringe was reportedly inhabited by the Harla people according to the Karrayyu Oromo. According to oral traditions, Shewa had a powerful king named Sarako, who prevented the people from bearing arms. A certain giant arose against Sarako, and his children, and destroyed them. When
2378-508: The former Sultanate of Ifat , with the Nora site in eastern Shewa being the most notable among them. Yekuno Amlak based his uprising against the Zagwe dynasty from an enclave in Shewa. He claimed Solomonic forebears, direct descendants of the pre-Zagwe Axumite emperors, who had used Shewa as their safe haven when their survival was threatened by Gudit and other enemies. This is the reason why
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2436-501: The lions bow ), better known by his birth name Lebna Dengel ( Amharic : ልብነ ድንግል , essence of the virgin ), was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1508 to 1540, whose political center and palace was in Shewa . A male line descendant of the medieval Amhara kings, and thus a member of the House of Solomon , he was the son of Emperor Na'od and Empress Na'od Mogesa. The important victory over
2494-592: The local Oromo inhabitants. In the spring of 1886, Menelik chose the site for Addis Ababa , his future capital. Building began at once, and, when Menelik became emperor of the whole country in 1889, Addis Ababa became the capital of Ethiopia. 9°00′N 39°00′E / 9.000°N 39.000°E / 9.000; 39.000 Amharic language Amharic ( / æ m ˈ h ær ɪ k / am- HARR -ik or / ɑː m ˈ h ɑːr ɪ k / ahm- HAR -ik ; native name : አማርኛ , romanized : Amarəñña , IPA: [amarɨɲːa] )
2552-482: 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.). The Amharic ejective consonants correspond to the Proto-Semitic " emphatic consonants ." In
2610-615: The protection of his general Wasan Sagad. However, Wasan Sagad was slain near Mount Busat while fighting Ura'i Utman on 29 July (5 Nahase 1524 A.M. ) and his army scattered. The Imam surprised the Emperor at the Battle of Amba Sel on 27 October, where the Emperor was almost captured, a reversal, in the words of R.S. Whiteway, that left Lebna Dengel "never in a position to offer a pitched battle to his enemies." The Imam's followers poured into Bet Amhara, pillaging every church they found, including Mekane Selassie, Atronsa Maryam, Debre Nagwadgwad and Ganata Giyorgis. Emperor Dawit fell back behind
2668-465: The region got the name "Shewa" which means 'rescue' or 'save'. This claim is supported by the Kebra Nagast , a book written under one of the descendants of Yekuno Amlak, which mentions Shewa as part of the realm of Menelik I . Aksum and its predecessor Dʿmt were mostly limited to Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea during the 1st millennium BCE. However, Shewa eventually became a part of Abyssinia upon
2726-639: The rise of the Amhara Solomonic dynasty . Dawit I and his successors stayed in Fatagar (part of Shewa) for a long time in Tobya (Yifat, Fatagar). The province served as the birthplace of the future emperors Zara Yaqob and Dawit II . Zara Yaqob and Na'od would then make Debre Berhan and Zway their capitals respectively. In 1528 Shewa was overrun by Muslim invaders from the Sultanate of Adal to
2784-639: The royal court are otherwise traced to the Amhara Emperor Yekuno Amlak . It is one of the official languages of Ethiopia , together with other regions like 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
2842-458: The same time the Oromo seized the opportunity to rebel and burnt Ankober to the ground. Haile Melekot, decided to prevent Debre Berhan from falling into the hands of his enemy and had the town put to flames, he then fled to a nearby hill where he hoped to hide but soon died of an illness on November 10. After Haile Melekot' death, Tewdoros' opponents rallied behind the late king's son, Menelik II . Tewdoros left his camp at Debre Berhan and pursued
2900-694: The territories of the Gurage. After a few years, Sahle Selassie felt his position secure enough that he proclaimed himself Negus, or king, of Shewa, Ifat, the Oromo and the Gurage peoples, without the authority of the Emperor of Ethiopia in Gondar . After the death of Sahle Selassie in 1847, Shewa fell under the rule of his son, Haile Melekot . Shewa soon attracted the attention of Emperor Tewodros II , who mobilized his army in Wollo and advanced into Shewa in October 1855. The Emperor advanced into Tegulet and around
2958-542: The town of Badeqe before Dawit could arrive with his army. He began to withdraw, retreating across the Samara, a tributary of the Awash. The Imam's followers were accustomed to making lightning raids on Ethiopian territory, swiftly attacking and quickly returning home; they had no experience in pitched battles, and Ahmad Gragn struggled with numerous desertions. The Emperor Dawit caught up with Imam Ahmad Gragn's forces, and they engaged in battle on either 7 or 9 March 1529, at
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#17327838317043016-656: Was destroyed, and the establishments on the islands of Lake Tana looted. Dawit's eldest son Fiqtor was killed at Zara in Wag by a lieutenant of Ahmad on 7 April 1537; another son, Menas , was captured on 19 May 1539, and later sent to Yemen . During the years he lived as an outlaw in his own realm constantly hounded by Imam Ahmed's soldiers the Malassay , Dawit came to see Queen Eleni's wisdom in reaching out to Europe for help, and he dispatched João Bermudes , who had arrived in Ethiopia with Dom Rodrigo de Lima, to request for military assistance. Bermudez traveled to Lisbon, where he
3074-453: Was dressed in a rich mantle of gold brocade, and silk shirts of wide sleeves. From his knees downwards he had a rich cloth of silk and gold well spread out like a Bishop's apron, and he was sitting in majesty as they paint God the Father on the wall. In age, complexion, and stature, he is a young man, not very black. His complexion might be chestnut or bay, not very dark in color; he is very much
3132-695: Was honorably received by John III of Portugal . The king acknowledged his title of "Patriarch of Ethiopia", which had been officially approved by the Pope. John III also provided him with letters addressed to the Portuguese Viceroy in India, directing the immediate dispatch of ships along with four to five hundred soldiers to assist the Abyssinian king in combating the Muslims. In 1539, Gragn sent an embassy to Dawit and asked for his daughter in marriage, and pointed out to him that if he refused to do so, there
3190-514: Was no one left with whom he could take refuge. The king replied, "I will not give her to you for you are an unbeliever; it is better to fall into the power of the Lord, Whose majesty is as great as His mercy, than into yours." Gragn was furious, and began a pursuit of the king, who wandered from desert to desert in nakedness, suffering from hunger, exhaustion and sickness. When Dawit was in Dembiya ,
3248-409: Was spoken by 21.6 million native speakers in Ethiopia. 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. Additionally, 3 million emigrants outside of Ethiopia speak the language. Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic. Furthermore, Amharic is considered
3306-401: Was stabbed to death in his bed by an unknown assailant at Debre Damo . Dawit was succeeded by his son Gelawdewos , as his son Menas had been captured by Ahmad a year before Dawit died. His release was not secured until 1543, when Queen Seble Wongel exchanged him for the captured son of Bati del Wambara and Ahmed after the Battle of Wayna Daga . One of Dawit II's younger sons, Yaqob,
3364-495: Was twenty one years old, quickly returned to war-ravaged Shewa. During the first part of his reign, he ordered the reconstruction of various fortified towns such as Ankober , Debre Berhan and Warra Ilu. These sites had the advantage of being in the center of his realm, enabling him to remain in contact with the Christians to the south and the Muslim Oromos in the northeast. The area around these town moreover had rich pastures capable of feeding numerous cavalry and other livestock. After
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