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44-616: The etymology of Shanqella is uncertain. It has been suggested that the appellation may stem from an Amharic epithet meaning "black" (or darker-skinned). However, it is likely that the term is instead of more ancient, Agaw derivation given the Agaw substratum in the Amharic language. According to the local traditions of the Agaw , the original inhabitants of Gojjam were the Shanqella (likely

88-523: 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

132-524: 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

176-751: 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

220-817: 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

264-524: 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

308-663: 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

352-501: 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

396-528: Is clearly a pseudonym (Taddesse Tamrat translates it as "The Unknown, the hidden one"), employed soon after his reign by the victorious Solomonic rulers in an act of damnatio memoriae . Taddesse Tamrat believes that this last ruler was actually Yetbarak . The end of the Zagwe came when Yekuno Amlak , who never personally claimed to be descendant of Dil Na'od or King Solomon, and acting under the guidance of either Saint Tekle Haymanot or Saint Iyasus Mo'a , pursued

440-508: Is credited with having ordered the construction of the rock-hewn monolithic churches of Lalibela . The name "Zagwe" is thought to derive from the ancient Ge'ez phrase Ze- Agaw , meaning "of the Agaw", in reference to the Mara Tekle Haymanot, the founder of the dynasty. This term does not appear in contemporary sources, neither in indigenous documents nor in accounts of foreign observers. David Buxton has stated that

484-455: 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 Zagwe dynasty The Zagwe dynasty ( Amharic : ዛጔ መንግሥት ) was a medieval Agaw monarchy that ruled

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528-469: 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

572-416: 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

616-599: The Gumuz people ), and relate that they originally conquered the land from them. The Shanqella first appear in a 15th-century praise-song for the Emperor Yeshaq I . The Shanqella are listed at the very beginning of the song when the regions and tribes of the kingdom are evoked. They praise the ruler and refer to their richness in goats (this connotes that they were primarily pastoralists). Historiography reports of ruler Iyasu I leading campaigns against "the Shanqella" on

660-534: 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,

704-539: The companions of the Prophet briefly lived in Ethiopia in 622 after being exiled from Mecca in the First Hijra . However, there is no archaeological evidence for this. There is, however, evidence for a Muslim community in eastern Tigray during the Zagwe period, possibly being Shiites depending on Fatimid patronage. Arabic funerary steles discovered near Qwiha confirm the presence of a Musli settlement between

748-504: 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

792-480: The 10th and 12th century, although its whereabouts are still unclear. Recent excavations at nearby Bilet found a Muslim cemetery in use from the late 10th to the mid-13th century, although most tombstones date to the 11th century. The nisbas of the deceased suggest links with Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula , and even Iran. Another Islamic cemetery was found at Arra 30 km southwards and was used between

836-510: The Agaw laws of inheritance . According to one tradition, around 960, Queen Gudit destroyed the remnants of the Kingdom of Aksum , causing a shift in its temporal power centre that later regrouped more to the south. For 40 years she ruled over what remained of the kingdom, eventually passing on the throne to her descendants, with Mara marrying the daughter of the last king of Aksum, Dil Na'od . According to other Ethiopian traditional accounts,

880-469: 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

924-523: 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

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968-558: The Patriarch is asked for a new abuna because the current office holder was too old, was from Mara Takla Haymanot, who wanted the abuna replaced because he would not endorse the new dynasty. The mystery of the Zagwe dynasty is perhaps darkest around its replacement by the Solomonic dynasty under Yekuno Amlak. The name of the last Zagwe king is lost—the surviving chronicles and oral traditions give his name as Za-Ilmaknun , which

1012-449: 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

1056-474: The areas under the direct rule of the Zagwe kings apart from the centre of power in Lasta "probably embraced the highlands of modern Eritrea , Tigray , Wag and Bete Amhara and thence westwards towards Lake Tana ( Begemder )." Unlike the practice of later rulers of Ethiopia, Taddesse Tamrat argues that under the Zagwe dynasty the order of succession was that of brother succeeding brother as king, based on

1100-483: 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

1144-591: The contemporary powers of the Mediterranean. The only regular relations seem to have been maintained with Egypt and Jerusalem. Although their presence is often claimed to have been of considerable antiquity, it is only in the 11th and 12th centuries when Ethiopians are firmly attested to have lived in Egypt. A rare testament for their presence during the reign of the Zagwe is a fragmentary manuscript written in Ge'ez that

1188-498: 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

1232-574: 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

1276-545: The early 10th century when the power of the Solomonic line was in decline. Enno Littmann theorized that these kings were forerunners of the Zagwe dynasty and E.A. Wallis Budge believed they may have even founded the Zagwe line. The Zagwe period is still shrouded in mystery; even the number of kings in this dynasty is disputed. Some sources (such as the Paris Chronicle, and manuscripts Bruce 88, 91, and 93) give

1320-520: The land grant by king Tantawedem is to be believed, its dispossession by the Zagwe. Surviving chronicles and manuscripts show variation in the number of kings and their individual length of reign. There are three main versions of the Zagwe line that are recorded, known as the 'short', 'long' and 'longer' lists. Example list recorded by Pedro Páez contains 5 names. Approximate dates: c. 1179–1270 (141 years). Example list below recorded by Carlo Conti Rossini contains 11 names. This version of

1364-431: The land grant of king Tantawedem in c. 1030. Lalibela's land grants are the last time hasani is associated with the king. By the reign of Amda Seyon in the first half of the 14th century it was used to denote a provincial governor. Like the kings of Aksum who preceded them, the Zagwe kings bore three names: a baptismal name, a regnal name and finally the surname. Unlike Aksum, the Zagwe were virtually unknown to

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1408-526: The last king of the Zagwe and killed him at the Battle of Ansata . In his land grants of 1204 and 1225, Lalibela called himself negus ("king"), which was the traditional title for Ethiopian kings. Besides negus he also called himself hasani , which means as much as "tutor", "nurse" or "counselor". This title first appeared in a 10th-century account by Ibn Hawqal describing an anonymous Ethiopian king, but also features in two undated Ge'ez inscriptions and

1452-402: The last of her dynasty was overthrown by Mara Takla Haymanot in 1137. Still more, according to another tradition, Mara was born in the province of Lasta , which was his power base. Originally a general of Dil Na'od, whose daughter Masoba Warq became his wife, Mara overthrew his father-in-law to found the new dynasty. James Bruce , on the other hand, presents another tradition that Dil Na'od

1496-603: The mid-12th and mid-14th century, with most tombstones dating to the 13th century. A now broken frieze with a Kufic inscription stored in the Wukro Chirkos church probably dates to the second half of the 11th century and may have originally been from a mosque, perhaps sponsored by the Fatimid Caliphate . Tigray's Muslim community declined from the 12th century because of the collapse of the Fatimids and, if

1540-541: The names of eleven kings who ruled for 354 years; others (among them the book Pedro Páez and Manuel de Almeida saw at Axum ) list only five who ruled 143. Paul B. Henze reports the existence of at least one list containing 16 names. According to Carlo Conti Rossini , the shorter mooted length of this dynasty is the more likely one. He argues that a letter received by the Patriarch of Alexandria John V shortly before 1150 from an unnamed Ethiopian monarch, in which

1584-639: The north-western borders of his kingdom (in this case, the Kunama people ). In the 1840s, Negus Sahle Selassie included the Shanqella in his titulature. The southwards expansion of ruler Menelik II , directed against Oromo and Kafa, and peoples further south, was also perceived as a campaign of submission of the Shanqella. They were regarded as mere savages, without any socio-political order, who were only good for economic and physical exploitation. Consequently, folk paintings show them with drastically exaggerated features as brutish blacks following unholy rituals. With

1628-496: The northern parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea . The Agaw are a Cushitic ethnic group native to the northern highlands of Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea . It ruled large parts of the territory from approximately 1137 to 1270 AD, when the last Zagwe King Za-Ilmaknun was killed in battle by the forces of the Amhara King Yekuno Amlak . The Zagwe are most famous for their king Gebre Meskel Lalibela , who

1672-482: 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

1716-491: The people of Welkait rebelled and laid waste to Axum , and in response he carried off large numbers of cattle and other animals from them. Dan'el then went to the country of the Maya and took 10,000 sheep and 3,000 cattle. The third inscription tells of how Dan'el went to Axum after his campaigns to be acknowledged as king and imprisoned the old king. It is difficult to date the reigns of these kings, but it likely occurred in

1760-529: The rise of the Derg in the 1970s, the establishment of new administrative structures inaugurated a second phase of forced cultural change, but also the final disappearance of the term "Shanqella" from Ethiopian discourse. 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] )

1804-639: 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

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1848-612: Was overthrown by Gudit , and that Mara Takla Haymanot (whom Bruce calls "Takla Haymanot") was a cousin of Gudit who succeeded her after several of her own family. Three inscriptions discovered in Axum mention the names of two kings, Dabra Ferem and his son Hasani Dan'el, who were Christian but are not recorded on Ethiopian regnal lists . The first inscription tells how Hasani Dan'el attacked rebel tribes in Kassala and claims that he conquered thirty peoples. The second inscription tells how

1892-626: Was recently discovered in the Monastery of Saint Anthony , dating to the mid-12th to mid-13th centuries. The earliest sources confirming an Ethiopian community in Jerusalem date to the second half of the 13th century. Yet it is still probable that Ethiopians had lived there before. In the late 12th century, King Lalibela's knowledge of the town was sufficient to have inspired him during the expansion of his capital, adopting Jerusalem's form, attributions and toponyms. According to Muslim tradition,

1936-475: 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

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