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Amharic language

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Not to be confused with the Aramaic language.
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Amharic
አማርኛ āmariññā 
Pronunciation: IPA: /amarɨɲɲa/
Spoken in: Ethiopia
Total speakers: 27 million as a first language, between 7-15 million more as a second language
Language family: Afro-Asiatic
 Semitic
  South Semitic
   Ethiopic
    South Ethiopic
     Amharic 
Writing system: Ge'ez alphabet 
Official status
Official language of: Ethiopia and the following specific regions: Addis Ababa City Council, Afar Region, Amhara Region, Benishangul-Gumaz Region, Dire Dawa Administrative council, Gambela Region, SNNPR
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: am
ISO 639-2: amh
ISO/FDIS 639-3: amh 
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Amharic (አማርኛ āmariññā) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. It is the second most spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the "official working" language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and thus has official status and use nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working language of several of the states within the federal system, including Amhara Region, the multi-ethnic Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, and Afar Region, despite the latter's homogeneity. It has been the working language of government, the military, and of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church throughout modern times. Outside Ethiopia, Amharic is the language of some 2.7 million emigrants (notably in Egypt, Israel and Sweden), and is spoken in Eritrea by educated Eritreans of the preindependence generation and younger deportees from Ethiopia.

It is written, with some adaptations, with the Ge'ez alphabet (used for the language of the same name) called fidel in Ethiopian Semitic languages (ፊደል fĭdel 'alphabet,' 'letter,' or 'character').

Contents

[edit] Sounds and orthography

[edit] Consonant and vowel phonemes

There is no agreed on way of transliterating Amharic into Roman characters. The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common, though not universal, among linguists specializing in Ethiopian Semitic languages. The Amharic ejectives correspond to the Proto-Semitic "emphatic consonants", usually transcribed with a dot below the letter. The consonant and vowel charts give these symbols in parentheses where they differ from the standard IPA symbols.

Consonants
Bilabial Dental Palato-alveolar
Palatal 		Velar Glottal
Plosives Voiceless p t k ʔ (ʾ)
Voiced b d g
Ejective pʼ (p', p̣) tʼ (t', ṭ) kʼ (q, ḳ)
Affricates Voiceless ʦ' (s') ʧ (č)
Voiced ʤ (ǧ)
Ejective ʧʼ (č', č̣)
Fricatives Voiceless f s ʃ (š) h
Voiced z ʒ (ž)
Nasals m n ɲ (ñ)
Liquids w l j (y)
Flap/Trill r
Vowels
Front Central Back
High i ɨ (ə) u
Mid e ə (ä) o
Low a

Image:Amharic vowel chart.png

[edit] Amharic fidel signs (ፊደል)

See also Ge'ez alphabet.

The following chart represents the basic forms of the consonants, ignoring the so-called "bastard" (Amh. ዲቃላ dīḳālā) labiovelarized forms of each consonant (represented by the addition of a superscripted "w," i.e. "ʷ") and not including the wholly labiovelarized consonants ḳʷ, hʷ (Ge'ez ḫʷ), kʷ, and gʷ. Some phonemes can be represented by more than one series of symbols: /'/, /s'/, and /h/ (the latter has four distinct letter forms). The citation form for each series is the consonant+/ä/ form, i.e. the first column of fidel. You will need a font that supports Ethiopic, such as GF Zemen Unicode, in order to view the fidel.

Non-speakers are often disconcerted or astonished by the remarkable similarity of many of the symbols. This is mitigated somewhat because, like many Semitic languages, Amharic uses triconsonantal roots in its verb morphology. The result of this is that a fluent speaker of Amharic can often decipher written text by observing the consonants, with the vowel variants being supplemental detail.

Chart of Amharic fidels
ä u i a e ə o
hሀሁሂሃሄህሆ
lለሉሊላሌልሎ
hሐሑሒሓሔሕሖ
mመሙሚማሜምሞ
sሠሡሢሣሤሥሦ
rረሩሪራሬርሮ
sሰሱሲሳሴስሶ
šሸሹሺሻሼሽሾ
qቀቁቂቃቄቅቆ
bበቡቢባቤብቦ
tተቱቲታቴትቶ
čቸቹቺቻቼችቾ
hኀኁኂኃኄኅኆ
nነኑኒናኔንኖ
ñኘኙኚኛኜኝኞ
ʾአኡኢኣኤእኦ
kከኩኪካኬክኮ
hኸኹኺኻኼኽኾ
wወዉዊዋዌውዎ
ʾዐዑዒዓዔዕዖ
zዘዙዚዛዜዝዞ
žዠዡዢዣዤዥዦ
yየዩዪያዬይዮ
dደዱዲዳዴድዶ
ǧጀጁጂጃጄጅጆ
gገጉጊጋጌግጎ
t'ጠጡጢጣጤጥጦ
č'ጨጩጪጫጬጭጮ
p'ጰጱጲጳጴጵጶ
s'ጸጹጺጻጼጽጾ
s'ፀፁፂፃፄፅፆ
fፈፉፊፋፌፍፎ
pፐፑፒፓፔፕፖ

[edit] Gemination

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 is hit'. Gemination is not indicated in Amharic orthography, but since there are relatively few minimal pairs such as these, Amharic readers seem not to 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. The noted Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu, who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform, indicated gemination in his novel Fǝqǝr Ǝskä Mäqabǝr by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice has not caught on.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Nouns

Amharic nouns can be primary or derived. A noun like əgər 'foot, leg' is primary, and a noun like əgr-äñña 'pedestrian' is a derived noun.

[edit] Gender

Amharic nouns can have a masculine or feminine gender. There are several ways to express gender. An example is the old suffix -t for feminity. This suffix is no longer productive and is limited to certain patterns and some isolated nouns. Nouns and adjectives ending in -awi usually take the suffix -t to form the feminine form, e.g. ityop':ya-(a)wi 'Ethiopian (m.)' vs. ityop':ya-wi-t 'Ethiopian (f.)'; sämay-awi 'heavenly (m.)' vs. sämay-awi-t 'heavenly (f.)'. This suffix also occurs in nouns and adjective based on the pattern qət(t)ul, e.g. nəgus 'king' vs. nəgəs-t 'queen' and qəddus 'holy (m.)' vs. qəddəs-t 'holy (f.)'.

Some nouns and adjectives take a feminine marker -it: ləǧ 'child, boy' vs. ləǧ-it 'girl'; bäg 'sheep, ram' vs. bäg-it 'ewe'; šəmagəlle 'senior, elder (m.)' vs. šəmagəll-it 'old woman'; t'ot'a 'monkey' vs. t'ot'-it 'monkey (f.)'. Some nouns have this feminine marker without having a masculine opposite, e.g. šärär-it 'spider', azur-it 'whirlpool, eddy'. There are, however, also nouns having this -it suffix that are treated as masculine: säraw-it 'army', nägar-it 'big drum'.

The feminine gender is not only used to indicate biological gender, but may also be used to express smallness, e.g. bet-it-u 'the little house' (lit. house-FEM-DEF). The feminine marker can also serve to express tenderness or sympathy.

[edit] Gender specifiers

Amharic has special words that can be used to indicate the gender of people and animals. For people, wänd is used for masculinity and set for feminity, e.g. wänd ləǧ 'boy', set ləǧ 'girl'; wänd hakim 'physician, doctor (m.)', set hakim 'physician, doctor (f.)'. For animals, the words täbat, awra, or wänd (less usual) can be used to indicate masculine gender, and anəst or set to indicate feminine gender. Examples: täbat t'əǧa 'calf (m.)'; awra doro 'cock (rooster)'; set doro 'hen'.

[edit] Plural

The plural suffix -očč is used to express plurality of nouns. Some morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel. For nouns ending in a consonant, plain -očč is used: bet 'house' becomes bet-očč 'houses'. For nouns ending in a back vowel (-a, -o, -u), the suffix takes the form -wočč, e.g. wəšša 'dog', wəšša-wočč 'dogs'; käbäro 'drum', käbäro-wočč 'drums'. Nouns that end in a front vowel pluralize using -wočč or -yočč, e.g. s'ähafi 'scholar', s'ähafi-wočč or s'ähafi-yočč 'scholars'. Another possibility for nouns ending in a vowel is to delete the vowel and use plain očč, as in wəšš-očč 'dogs'.

Besides using the normal external plural (-očč), nouns and adjectives can be pluralized by way of reduplicating one of the radicals. For example, wäyzäro 'lady' can take the normal plural, yielding wäyzär-očč, but wäyzazər 'ladies' is also found.

Some kinship-terms have two plural forms with a slightly different meaning. For example, wändəmm 'brother' can be pluralized as wändəmm-očč 'brothers' but also as wändəmmam-ač 'brothers of each other'. Likewise, əhət 'sister' can be pluralized as əhət-očč ('sisters'), but also as ətəmm-am-ač 'sisters of each other'.

In compound words, the plural marker is suffixed to the second noun: betä krəstiyan 'church' (lit. house of Christian) becomes betä krəstiyan-očč 'churches'.

[edit] Archaic plural forms

Amsalu Aklilu has pointed out that Amharic has inherited a large number of old plural forms directly from Classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez). There are two archaic pluralizing strategies, called external and internal plural. The external plural consists of adding the suffix -an (usually masculine) or -at (usually feminine) to the singular form. The internal plural employs vowel quality or apophony to pluralize words, similar to English man vs. men and goose vs. geese. Sometimes combinations of the two systems are found. The archaic plural forms are not productive anymore, which means that they can not be used to form new plurals.

  • Examples of the external plural: mämhər 'teacher', mämhər-an; t'äbib 'wise person', t'äbib-an; kahən 'priest', kahən-at; qal 'word', qal-at.
  • Examples of the internal plural: dəngəl 'virgin', dänagəl; hagär 'land', ahəgur.
  • Examples of combined systems: nəgus 'king', nägäs-t; kokäb 'star', käwakəb-t; mäs'əhaf 'book', mäs'ahəf-t.

[edit] Definiteness

If a noun is definite or specified, this is expressed by a suffix, the article. In singular forms, this article distinguishes between the male and female gender; in plural forms this distinction is absent. As in the plural, morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel.

[edit] Nominalization

Amharic has various ways to derive nouns from other words or other nouns. One way of nominalizing consists of a form of vowel agreement (similar vowels on similar places) inside the three-radical structures typical of Semitic languages. For example:

  • CəCäC: — t'əbäb 'wisdom'; həmäm 'sickness'
  • CəCCaC-e: — wəffar-e 'obesity'; č'əkkan-e 'cruelty'
  • CəC-ät: — rət'b-ät 'moistness'; 'əwq-ät 'knowledge'; wəfr-ät 'fatness'.

There are also several nominalizing suffixes.

  • -ənna: — 'relation'; krəst-ənna 'Christianity'; sənf-ənna 'laziness'; qes-ənna 'priesthood'.
  • -e, suffixed to place name X, yields 'a person from X': goǧǧam-e 'someone from Gojjam'.
  • -äñña and -täñña serve to express profession, or some relationship with the base noun: əgr-äñña 'pedestrian' (from əgər 'foot'); bärr-äñña 'gate-keeper' (from bärr 'gate').
  • -ənnät and -nnät — '-ness'; ityop'yawi-nnät 'Ethiopianness'; qərb-ənnät 'nearness' (from qərb 'near').

[edit] Verbs

[edit] Gerund

Along with the infinitive and the present participle, the gerund is one of three non-finite verb forms. The infinitive is a nominalized verb, the present participle expresses incomplete action, and the gerund expresses completed action, e.g. ali məsa bälto wädä gäbäya hedä 'Ali, having eaten lunch, went to the market'. There are several usages of the gerund depending on its morpho-syntactic features.

[edit] Verbal use

The gerund functions as the head of a subordinate clause (see the example above). There may be more than one gerund in one sentence. The gerund is used to form the following tense forms:

  • present perfect nägro -all/näbbär 'He has said'.
  • past perfect nägro näbbär 'He had said'.
  • possible perfect nägro yəhonall 'He (probably) has said'.
[edit] Adverbial use

The gerund can be used as an adverb: alfo alfo yəsəqall 'Sometimes he laughs'. əne dägmo mämt'at əfälləgallähu 'I also want to come'.

[edit] Adjectives

Adjectives are words or constructions used to qualify nouns. Adjectives in Amharic can be formed in several ways: they can be based on nominal patterns, or derived from nouns, verbs and other parts of speech. Adjectives can be nominalized by way of suffixing the nominal article (see Nouns above). Amharic has few primary adjectives. Some examples are dägg 'kind, generous', dəda 'mute, dumb, silent', bič'a 'yellow'.

[edit] Formed from nominal patterns

CäCCaC — käbbad 'heavy'; läggas 'generous'
CäC(C)iC — räqiq 'fine, subtle'; addis 'new'
CäC(C)aCa — säbara 'broken'; t'ämama 'bent, wrinkled'
CəC(C)əC — bələh 'intelligent, smart'; dəbbəq' 'hidden'
CəC(C)uC — kəbur 'worthy, dignified'; t'əqur 'black'; qəddus 'holy'

[edit] Formed by denominalizing suffixes

-äñña — hayl-äñña 'powerful' (from hayl 'power'); əwnät-äñña 'true' (from əwnät 'truth')
-täñña — aläm-täñña 'secular' (from aläm 'world')
-awi — ləbb-awi 'intelligent' (from ləbb 'heart'); mədr-awi 'earthly' (from mədr 'earth'); haymanot-awi 'religious' (from haymanot 'religion')

[edit] With prefix yä 'from'

yä-kätäma 'urban' (lit. 'from the city'); yä-krəstənna 'Christian' (lit. 'of Christianity'); yä-wəšät 'wrong' (lit. 'of falsehood')

In the same way, a relative perfectum or imperfectum can be used as an adjective by prefixing yä:

yä-bässälä 'ripe, done' (lit. 'what has been cooked/prepared'); yä-qoyyä 'old' (lit. 'what remained'); yä-mm-ikkättäl 'following' ('that what is following', from tä-kättälä 'to follow'); yä-mm-ittay 'visible' (lit. 'what is seen')

[edit] Adjective Noun complex

The adjective and the noun together are called the 'adjective noun complex'. In Amharic, the adjective precedes the noun, with the verb last; e.g. kəfu geta 'a bad master'; təlləq bet särra (lit. big house he-built) 'he built a big house'.

If the adjective noun complex is definite, the definite article is suffixed to the adjective and not to the noun, e.g. təlləq-u bet (lit. big-def house) 'the big house'. In a possessive construction, the adjective takes the definite article, and the noun takes the pronominal possessive suffix, e.g. təlləq-u bet-e (lit. big-def house-my) 'my big house'.

When enumerating adjectives using -nna 'and', both adjectives take the definite article: qonǧo-wa-nna astäway-wa ləǧ mät't'ačč (lit. pretty-def-and intelligent-def girl came) 'the pretty and intelligent girl came'. In the case of an indefinite plural adjective noun complex, the noun is plural and the adjective may be used in singular or in plural from. Thus, 'diligent students' can be rendered təgu tämariwočč (lit. diligent student-PLUR) or təguwočč tämariwočč (lit. diligent-PLUR student-PLUR).

[edit] Amharic translation companies

Because of the rapid growth of Ethiopian communities in Europe and America as well as in Canada several public service organizations started to offer Amharic language translation and interpretation services. Cities like Washington, DC, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Seattle, Washington are some of the cities who are offering Amharic educational materials to Ethiopians.

[edit] Rastafarians

Many Rastafarians learn Amharic as a second language because consider it to be a sacred language, and even the original language. Various roots reggae musicians including Lincoln Thompson and Misty-in-Roots have written songs in Amharic, thus bringing the sound of this relatively unknown language to a wider audience.

A notable early attempt to use Amharic in reggae was the anthem Satta Amassagana, mistakenly believed to mean "Give thanks". However, this "Amharic" phrase seems to have been derived from looking in a bilingual dictionary and finding the entries säţţä for "give" (actually "he gave") and 'amässägänä for "thank" or "praise" (actually "he thanked" or "he praised"), by those unaware of the correct inflections of these verbs, the convention of always listing verbs in the past tense third person, or the pronunciation of the diacritical marks. The actual way to say "give thanks" is a related word, misgana. Ironically, owing to the vast popularity of this song, "to satta" has even entered modern Rastafarian vocabulary as a verb meaning "to sit down and partake".

[edit] Amharic Software

Almost all Amharic characters have a Unicode representation. Now people can post forums, blog, send e-mail and design a Web site. You can also buy Amharic software that is Unicode-compliant. There are several free software programs and also some with fees.

Amharic is written with popular software packages such as:Hewan Amharic Software, AbeshaSoft and PowerGe'ez. The script can also be written by installing a font Can't See the fonts.

[edit] References

[edit] Grammar

  • Abraham, Roy Clive (1968). The Principles of Amharic. Occasional Publication / Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. [rewritten version of 'A modern grammar of spoken Amharic', 1941]
  • Afevork Ghevre Jesus (1905) Grammatica della lingua amarica. Roma.
  • Amsalu Aklilu & Demissie Manahlot (1990) T'iru ye'Amarinnya Dirset 'Indet Yale New! (An Amharic grammar, in Amharic)
  • Appleyard, David (1994) Colloquial Amharic, Routledge ISBN 0-415-10003-8
  • Bennet, M.E. (1978) Stratificational Approaches to Amharic Phonology. PhD thesis, Ann Arbor: Michigan State University.
  • Cohen, Marcel (1936) Traité de langue amharique. Paris.
  • Dawkins, C. H. (¹1960, ²1969) The Fundamentals of Amharic. Addis Ababa.
  • Kapeliuk, Olga (1988) Nominalization in Amharic. Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-515-04512-0
  • Kapeliuk, Olga (1994) Syntax of the noun in Amharic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-03406-8.
  • Leslau, Wolf (1995) Reference Grammar of Amharic. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-447-03372-X
  • Ludolf, Hiob (1698) Grammatica Linguæ Amharicæ. Frankfort.
  • Praetorius, Franz (1879) Die amharische Sprache. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.

[edit] Dictionaries

  • Abbadie, Antoine d' (1881) Dictionnaire de la langue amariñña. Actes de la Société philologique, t. 10. Paris.
  • Amsalu Aklilu (1973) English-Amharic dictionary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-572264-7
  • Baeteman, J. (1929) Dictionnaire amarigna-français. Diré-Daoua
  • Gankin, É. B. (1969) Amxarsko-russkij slovar'. Pod redaktsiej Kassa Gäbrä Heywät. Moskva: Izdatel'stvo `Sovetskaja Éntsiklopedija'.
  • Guidi, I. (1901) Vocabolario amarico-italiano. Roma.
  • Guidi, I. (1940) Supplemento al Vocabolario amarico-italiano. (compilato con il concorso di Francesco Gallina ed Enrico Cerulli) Roma.
  • Kane, Thomas L. (1990) Amharic-English Dictionary. (2 vols.) Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-02871-8
  • Leslau, Wolf (1976) Concise Amharic Dictionary. (Reissue edition: 1996) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20501-4
  • Täsämma Habtä Mikael Gəṣṣəw (1953 Ethiopian calendar) Käsate Bərhan Täsämma. Yä-Amarəñña mäzgäbä qalat. Addis Ababa: Artistic.

[edit] External links

Amharic language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Modern Semitic languages
Amharic | Arabic | Chaha | Harari | Hebrew | Inor | Maltese |
Neo-Aramaic | Silt'e | Soddo | South Arabian | Syriac | Tigre | Tigrinya
af:Amharies

am:አማርኛ ar:لغة أمهرية bg:Амхарски език bs:Amharski jezik br:Amhareg ca:Amhàric cs:Amharština de:Amharische Sprache es:Idioma amárico et:Amhari keel fi:Amhara fr:Amharique he:אמהרית id:Bahasa Amharik it:Lingua amarica ja:アムハラ語 ka:ამჰარული ენა ko:암하라어 nl:Amhaars pl:Język amharski pt:Língua amárica ru:Амхарский язык sk:Amharčina sl:Amharščina sv:Amhariska zh:阿姆哈拉语

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