Ge'ez language

Spoken in

Afro-Asiatic languages Semitic languages West Semitic languages Südsemitische languages Äthiosemitische languages Nordäthiosemitische languages Ge'ez

Gez

Ge'ez ( ግዕዝ Gə ʿ əz, also: Geez, Aksumitisch or Alttigrinya ) was the language of the ancient kingdom of Aksum late and was too long after that until the 19th century, the main literary language in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Today it is the liturgical language of the Ethiopian, Eritrean Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Jews.

6.3.1 root formation
6.3.2 conjugation
6.3.3 verbal nouns

7.1 Sentence Structure 7.1.1 subordination

9.1 grammar
9.2 Textbooks
9.3 encyclopedias
Epigraphy and paleography 9.4
9.5 Literature

Linguistic classification

Ge'ez is jointly owned with the languages of Tigre and Tigrinya to the northern group of the äthiosemitischen languages , one based in Ethiopia branch of südsemitischen languages. Typological is the Ge'ez between the classical and the modern Semitic languages Ethiopian languages by one hand in phonology and morphology has significant innovations, on the other hand, however, is much more ancient than eg Amharic in many cases. Through contact with speakers of Cushitic languages came probably in prehistoric times additional non -Semitic vocabulary in the Ge'ez one.

Research

However, although first lexical and grammatical texts originated in medieval Ethiopia, an actual scientific study began but only after first texts were known to Ge'ez in Europe in the first half of the 16th century. Particular merit acquired in this pioneering era of Job Ludolf, the grammar and lexicon of a 1699 Ge'ez published 1661. Although the Ge'ez so early was already known in Europe, and has research and teaching within the Semitic no Hebrew or Arabic comparable status.

History and tradition

The oldest inscriptions in Ge'ez are some Aksumite inscriptions, some even from before Ezana 's conversion to Christianity in the fourth century. Among them are about a dozen royal and several hundred private, usually very short texts. From the first centuries after the introduction of Christianity comes an extensive, but preserved only in much later copies Christian literature, which was to a large extent from the Greek, and later the Coptic and Arabic, translated. After the fall of the Aksumite Empire around 600 AD, the literary activity took off in Ethiopia strongly, so from a few centuries almost no written records of the Ge'ez is obtained. Towards the end of the 1st millennium AD, the Ge'ez is likely to have been displaced as a spoken language from the Amharic and Tigrinya to, but a larger amount of sacred, including the Confession of Claudius, and profane literature was produced again in the following centuries, among which historical works, the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast national epic, as well as individual 's scientific writings are mentioned.

The main written language of Ethiopia, the Ge'ez was replaced in modern times from Amharic, which since the 13th century was indeed the language of the royal court, but had been used in writing only to a small extent. To date, the Ethiopian language serves as the sacred language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Catholic Church.

Font

Main article: Ethiopian font

The earliest Ethiopian inscriptions were written in altsüdarabischer font. Soon after, a slightly modified form of the Old South Arabian font made out that as this was initially a purely consonantal script. A syllabic script was by attaching small strokes and circles on consonants formed therefrom, the syllables of the form consonant-vowel ( CV) and could play every consonant. In this way, the 30 -character unvokalisierte Ge'ez was expanded to a comprehensive 202 characters syllabary.

Phonology

Although the Ge'ez has been handed down over the centuries, the phonology of ancient Ge'ez is poorly known, since the traditional pronunciation is heavily influenced by Amharic. The Scriptures are 26 consonant phonemes and four labiovelars again. Like most Afro-Asiatic languages had the Ge'ez next to voiceless and voiced consonants also emphatic consonants that were probably realized, as in all modern languages südsemitischen by Glottalisierung. Unique among all the Semitic languages is the existence of three non- voiced bilabial: All other Semitic languages have either f or p, the Ge'ez has, however, p, f, and an emphatic variant P, whose etymology is not fully understood. Also unusual are four labiovelars. Altogether, the following reconstruction of the Ge'ez consonants system can claim at least a certain probability:

Simple is the reconstruction of the vocal system. In Scripture be ( in the traditional Ethiopian order) the seven vowels a, u, i, ā, e, ə and o distinguished. When a is a semi- open central vowel ā is similar to a German a, but later realized. Vowel quantities are not distinguished because they are no longer meaningful crucial by a series of sound shifts in Ge'ez. This ə and a walk to old short vowels, ā, i, and u on long vowels and diphthongs e and o to * ai and * au back. The transcription symbols a and ā are historicized, besides also the character ä and a are used, the closer the actual sound values.

Where the word accent in ancient times was, is unknown; in the traditional debate, it is usually on the penultimate verbs, nouns and at most pronouns, however, on the last syllable.

Some phonological processes are for the verbal morphology of importance: the vowels a and ə are in the neighborhood of " laryngeals " ʾ, ʿ, h, h and h exposed to some changes, see, for example sama ʿ -ku, I heard ' with Sarab -ku, I drank '.

Morphology

Nominal morphology

Noun

Nouns differ in Ge'ez, the two genera masculine and feminine, which is marked with certain words with a suffix -t. The Number Case is unmarked, the plural can be formed both by the suffix -at ( " external plural" ) as well as by changing the vowel structure ( "internal / broken plural" ):

Outside plural: ʿ amat - ʿ āmatāt, Year ( s) ', May - Mayat ' water ' (NB: Unlike the adjectives and other Semitic languages both genera can form their plural with -AT)
Inner plural: The formation of the inner plurals is very diverse, examples of particularly frequent forms of education are: bet - ʾ abyat, house, houses '; qərnəb - qarānəbt, eyelid (s) '.

The noun also distinguishes the two nominative and accusative case. The nominative is unmarked, the accusative has the ending -a: bet - bet -a 'house.' The accusative marked mainly the direct object of a verb and represents the essentially a possession ratio expressing status constructus other Semitic languages: sarha nəguś bet- a, / a king built a / the house '; bet -a nəguś, home of the / a king '. The accusative and possessive constructions can next be paraphrased. The determination is generally not marked, however, can do this, the personal pronouns of the third person are used: dabr - u, the mountain ', literally, his mountain '.

Adjective

The morphology of adjectives is not significantly different from that of nouns, however, the genus is marked consistently; the outer masculine plural adjectives is formed with not -at, but with - ān. In the attributive use of the adjective comes after the noun to which it refers: NOBA qayḥ, red Nubians '.

Pronominalmorphologie

The Ge'ez distinguishes two sets of personal pronouns ( Note: The Pronominalsuffixen occur depending preceded According to some versions. ). The basic division into two rows correspond to the other Semitic languages , on the other hand also strong deviations of related languages fall on in the third person of absolute pronouns:

The independent personal pronouns usually mark the subject: wə ʾ ətu Sahafa, he wrote, ' nəguś ʾ ana, I am the king '. In addition, they may occur in the third person as a copula. Mark the Pronominalsuffixe contrast to nouns attached a possession ratio: bet -ya, my house ', behind a verbs and prepositions whose object: qatala -ni, he killed me,' la- ka, to you '.

To print special emphasis some can use the Pronominalsuffixe composite shapes are used, as in the nominative lalli -ka, you ( yourself) ' and in the accusative Kiya -hu him; precisely this '.

Verbal morphology

Stem formation

The basis of word formation in Ge'ez is the usual three root consonants comprehensive root. Of each root (theoretically ) Twelve different strains can be derived. By affixes four different classes can first be formed, which denotes Tropper 2002 with the letters 0, A, T and Branch, but there are also other names. Without further additions can be from the root QTL kill ' ie the forms ( past tense ) qat ( a) la, ʾ aqtala, taqat ( a) la, form ʾ astaqtala. The basic root 0 has the unmodified meaning of the root; the strain A is factitive or causative verbs: satya, he drank ' - ʾ a- staya, he watered '. The T stem, however, is intransitive - passive and thus as a means to distinguish the diathesis in use; the branch strain linked to Kausativstamm with the passive stem: t- AgAb ʾ a, he surrendered ' - ʾ - ast terms ʾ a, he conquered '.

Of these four strains can be ā by the infixing of the stem vowel or consonant gemination of a root extended two strains derived. Each of these strains form an independent lexeme, but its meaning can be derived in general from the meaning of the root.

Conjugation

As a West Semitic language Ge'ez distinguishes the two types of conjugation: the past tense, which is mainly conjugated with prefixes and suffixes conjugated with Perfect. The imperfect distinguishes the two modes indicative and imperative / jussive by changes in the vocalization. Kill the conjugation of qatala, ' is:

The Perfect is mainly completed for from the perspective of the speaker, on the other hand used the indicative for unfinished actions. The jussive is used for expression of desires as well as in the final and consecutive subordinate clauses as well as in object sets after verbs of commanding and the like; the imperative, which formally resembles a jussive without Personalaffixe is limited to the second person.

Verbal nouns

From the Proto - Semitic Ge'ez has inherited the different types of training for participles, such as the prefixation of ma -: makwannən, judges ' to kwannana, he ruled taught '. However, these developments are only of lexical meaning, as they were no longer free can be formed in historical times. Widely used, however, are two nouns actionis: the gerund, the shape - qatila has. His subject ( as opposed to the other verbal forms not object ) is expressed with the Personalsuffixen: qatila -ka (2nd person singular masculine ), etc. It is used in the formation of Temporalsätzen, Sarab -a -ka qatila can thus either he drank after you killed 'or' he drank, as you killed ' mean. In addition, there is still the real infinitive, which has the form qatil in the basic stem, by contrast, is in all other strains by suffixation of -o or -ot Personalsuffixen before.

Syntax

In Ge'ez the verbal predicate is usually in front of subject and object: Sarh -a bet- a, he built a house ', but other positions are possible. Unlike European languages , the predicate of a sentence can also be formed from a noun or pronoun, the absolute personal pronouns may occur as a copula: N. N. wə ʾ ətu nəguś, N. N. is king '.

Subordination

Subordinate clauses are introduced by different types of particles and follow the usual word order:

Relative clauses are in Ge'ez particularly common subordinate clauses, as participles were no longer free can be formed in historical times. The relative pronoun has the forms za- ( masculine singular), ʾ ənta ( feminine singular) and ʾ əlla ( plural): bə ʾ əsi za- yaḥawər, the / a man who goes '.

Negation

The most common means of negation is the prefix ʾ i, which is prefixed in sentences with verbal predicate this:

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