Ethiopic Language

(This is a draft version of the article which appeared in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its
Reception, 2013)
Girma A. Demeke and Ephraim Isaac

Derivation of its name

The term Ethiopic (language), probably introduced by Ludolf in the 17th century, is used in
reference to the Old Semitic language of Ethiopia which is known as Ge ez lit. free
pronounced [gɨ ɨz] with the pharyngeal fricative . Some Ethiopian Church scholars
however refer to the language with the glottal stop as [gɨ ɨz] which means first and claim
that it was the first language in which God communicated with Adam. Leaving the
mythology aside, Ethiopic is one of the first seven languages of the ancient world to receive
the Holy Scriptures (Isaac 2012). It is a sacred language for the Ethiopian Tewahido
Orthodox Church. It was also the only authorized official language for written
communication in the Ethiopian empire until the middle of the 19th century.

Ethiopic Literature
Commonly found written on parchments, Ethiopic literature includes Biblical, apocryphal,
and pseudoepigraphic works, hagiographies, poetry, chronicles, homilies, calendaric and
theological works. All these texts offer insight not only into the history and culture of
Ethiopia but also the literature and history of early Christianity, which became the official
religion of the Aksumite kingdom around 340 ACE with the conversion of Emperor Ezana
(reigned ca. 330-370). Ethiopic manuscripts are currently found in Ethiopian monasteries
and churches as well as well-known manuscript collections of major private and public
libraries and museums in Europe and America. Ethiopic literature represents an invaluable
source not only for the understanding of African civilization, but also for the study of the
transmission of the Biblical text as well as the study of the major religions of the world:
Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Traditional African Religions.

The first written materials found in Ethiopia are inscriptions that date back to about 900
BCE. They are written in old South Arabian language which most scholars refer to as
Sabaean or simply as epigraphic South Arabian. Monumental inscriptions in Ge ez are
found in a number of cites (including outside the current Ethiopian territory) starting from
the middle of the first millennium BCE.

The translation of the Holy Scriptures into Ethiopic was completed in the early Christian
period (Isaac 2012, 2013). The Abba Garima Gospels, which are in Ge ez and date back to
the 5th and 6th centuries, are now considered to be the earliest known Christian illuminated
manuscripts. The Garima manuscripts are two from probably two writers as the
handwriting are different. Radiocarbon dating conducted at Oxford University Research
Laboratory for Archeology for one of the manuscripts is 330-540 and for the other one is
430-650 (see Isaac 2013 for relevant references).

Works of this early Christian period are mostly translations from Greek and include the
Book of Enoch and Jubilees, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Ascension of Isaiah and Fisalgos.
The complete versions of the first three only survived in Ethiopic. The last one was

1
originally composed around 200 ACE in Alexandria. The Ethiopic canon, generally
consisting of 81 books, includes the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament), Late
Second Temple Jewish literature (known as Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha), and the
Christian New Testament (Isaac 2012).

It is thought that Ethiopic ceased to be a spoken language between the 8th and 10th
centuries. Its literature however continues to flourish, even till today. From the period of
the Zague dynasty (ca. 937-1270) we find a notable work called Kɨbrä Nägäst Glory of
Kings which some scholars consider to be a translation from Arabic. The stories found in
this work became the bases of the political mythology for the justification of the restoration
of the Solomonic Dynasty in 1270. A number of literatures which are both translations and
original compositions, flourished after the restoration of the Solomonic Dynasty. Works
such as Mäs ħafä Bɨrhan Book of the Light attributed to Emperor Zär a Ya ɨqob (1434-
1468) and Mäs ħafa Mɨst ir written ca. 4 4 by abba Giyorgis of Gasɨcc a (d. 1476) are the
seminal works of the 15th century. A number of works from this century, such as Mäs ħafä
Sä atat, Arganonä Maryam, Ħoħtä Bɨrhan, and Egzi abħer Nägsä are ascribed to Abba
Giyorgis of Gasɨcc a who is considered to be the most prolific writer.
Writing System
Ethiopic uses its own alphabet which is generally assumed to be derived from the South
Semitic branch of Proto-Sinaitic of the ha-la-ħa-ma order. Proto-Sinaitic evolved into two
alphabetic orders: the ha-la-ħa-ma order and the abejad order. Classical Ethiopic
alternatively uses the abejad Phoenician order probably the result of the early influence of
Christian writings. Originally un-voweled and written from right to left and in some
cases boustrophedon as in the other Semitic scripts, Classical Ethiopic is a phonetic writing
system. Each alphabet has seven orders indicating the seven basic vowels of the language.
The vowels are marked often by hyphens but also by a small circel which is placed
differently as in ለ ሉ ሊ ላ ሌ ል ሎ. The first order is the orginal form which does not take a
vowel marker.
Grammar and Its Place in Semitic
Ethiopic belongs, along with Tigre and Tigrinya, to the northern branch of Ethio-Semitic
group. Ethio-Semitic languages in general have closer similarity with Akkadian, the ancient
Semitic language of the Mesopotamia region than to any other group (see Girma 2009,
chapter 5 and the reference cited there).

Unlike modern Ethio-Semitic languages, Classical Ethiopic has head-initial structure where
the dominant order of a transitive clause is VSO. Relative clauses follow the noun that they
modify and adpositions are prepositions. Construct state, broken plurals and gutturals
which characterize Semitic are all preserved in Ethiopic. Ethiopic has twenty four basic
consonants and seven vowels. It lacks palatalized consonants unlike the Modern Ethio-
Semitic languages.

Classical Ethiopic, still serving as liturgical language of the Ethiopian Tewahido Orthodox
Church and the Ethiopian Jewish community, referred to as Bete Israel, is probably the
most studied language among the Ethio-Semitic languages. A seminal work on its grammar

2
is undoubtedly Dillmann (1889). A most impressive dictionary of Ethiopic is Kidanewold
Kifle (1948). For English readers an equivalent to this dictionary is Leslau (1991).

References
Demeke, Girma A. 2009. The Origin of Amharic. Munchen: Lincom Academic Publishers.
Dillmann, August. (1899), Carl Bezold (ed.), Jams A. Crichton (trans.) 1907 (translated
edition). Ethiopic Grammar. London, Amsterdam: Philo Press.
Isaac, Ephraim. 2012. The Bible in Ethiopic. In Marsden, Richard and Matter, E. Ann (eds).
The New Cambridge History of the Bible. Vol. 2: From 600-1450. Pp. 110-122.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Isaac, Ephraim. 2013. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Trenton: Red Sea Press.
Kidanewold Kifle. 1948. Mäs ħafä säwasɨw wämäzgäbä k alat ħadis. Dire Dawa, Addis
Ababa: Artistic Printing Press.
Leslau, Wolf. 1991. Comparative Dictionary of Ge ez. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.