Geez ( or ; ), sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic, is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea.
As of today, Geez is used as the main liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, and the Beta Israel Jewish community.
The first inscription of Ge'ez is from the Hawulti Obelisk in the historic region of Akele Guzay. It is an ancient pre-Aksumite obelisk located in ancient city of Metera in Eritrea. The monument dates tentatively to circa 400 CE in the early Aksumite period and bears the first known example of the ancient Geez script.
In one study, Tigre (language spoken in Northern Eritrea) was found to have a 71% lexical similarity to Geʽez, while Tigrinya had a 68% lexical similarity to Geʽez, followed by Amharic at 62%. Most linguists believe that Geez does not constitute a common ancestor of modern Ethio-Semitic languages but became a separate language early on from another hypothetical unattested common language.Amsalu Aklilu, Kuraz Publishing Agency, p. 42
Phonology
Vowels
+ Geʽez vowels Front Central Back Close // // // Mid // // Near-open / ~ / Open / ~ /
Historically, has a basic correspondence with Proto-Semitic short and , with short , the vowels with Proto-Semitic long respectively, and with the Proto-Semitic diphthongs and . In Geʽez there still exist many alternations between and , less so between and , e.g. taloku ~ talawku ("I followed").
In the transcription employed by the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, which is widely employed in academia, the contrast here represented as a/ā is represented as ä/a.
Consonants
Transliteration
Geez is transliterated according to the following system (see the phoneme table below for IPA values): translit. Geʽez
translit. Geʽez
Because Geez is no longer spoken in daily life by large communities, the early pronunciation of some consonants is not completely certain. Gragg writes that "[t]he consonants corresponding to the graphemes (Geez ) and (Geez ) have merged with ሰ and ጸ respectively in the phonological system represented by the traditional pronunciation—and indeed in all modern Ethiopian Semitic. ... There is, however, no evidence either in the tradition or in Ethiopian Semitic [for] what value these consonants may have had in Geez."
A similar problem is found for the consonant transliterated . Gragg notes that it corresponds in etymology to velar or uvular fricatives in other Semitic languages, but it is pronounced exactly the same as in the traditional pronunciation. Though the use of a different letter shows that it must originally have had some other pronunciation, what that pronunciation was is not certain.
The chart below lists and as possible values for () and () respectively. It also lists as a possible value for (). These values are tentative, but based on the reconstructed Proto-Semitic consonants that they are descended from.
Phonemes of Geʽez
The following table presents the consonants of the Geez language. The reconstructed phonetic value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, followed by its representation in the Geez script and scholarly transliteration.
+ Geʽez consonants Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Pharyngeal Glottal Nasal // // Stop/Affricate voiceless // // // /ʷ/ // voiced // // // /ʷ/ emphatic // // // // // /kʷ’/ Fricative voiceless // // // // /ʷ/ // // voiced // // Approximant // // // //
Geez consonants in relation to Proto-Semitic
Geez consonants have a triple opposition between voiceless, voiced, and ejective (or emphatic) obstruents. The Proto-Semitic "emphasis" in Geez has been generalized to include emphatic . Geʽez has phonologized labiovelars, descending from Proto-Semitic biphonemes. Geez ś Sawt (in Amharic, also called śe-nigūś, i.e. the se letter used for spelling the word nigūś "king") is reconstructed as descended from a Proto-Semitic voiceless lateral fricative . Like Arabic, Geez merged Proto-Semitic š and s in (also called se-isat: the se letter used for spelling the word isāt "fire"). Apart from this, Geez phonology is comparably conservative; the only other Proto-Semitic phonological contrasts lost may be the interdental fricatives and ghayn.
Stress
There is no evidence within the script of stress rules in the ancient period, but stress patterns exist within the liturgical tradition(s). Accounts of these patterns are, however, contradictory. One early 20th-century account, as used by , and largely identical to may be broadly summarized as follows: primary stress only falls on the ultima (the last syllable) or the penult (the second-to-last syllable) in finite verbs (including the imperative), stress falls on the penult: qatálat ("she killed"), nə́gər ("speak!", masculine singular), with the important exception of the 2nd-person feminine plural suffix -kə́n in nouns and adjectives (in citation form), and most adverbs, stress falls on the ultima: nəgúś ("king"), hagár ("city"), Gə́ʽz ("Geʽez"), ṭabíb ("wise"), həyyá ("there"); an exception among adverbs is zə́ya ("here") the suffix -a, marking the construct state or the accusative case (or both), is not stressed: nəgúśa, hagára, Gə́ʽza, ṭabíba cardinal numbers are stressed on the ultima, even in the accusative, e.g. śalastú accusative śalastá ("three") pronouns have rather unpredictable stress, so stress is learned for each form enclitic particles (such as -(ə)ssá) are stressed various grammatical words (short prepositions, conjunctions) and short nouns in the construct state are unstressed As one example of a discrepancy, a different late 19th-century account, as cited by says the masculine singular imperative is stressed on the ultima (e.g. nəgə́r, "speak!"), and that, in some patterns, words can be stressed on the third-, fourth- or even fifth-to-last syllable (e.g. bárakata).
Due to the high predictability of stress location in most words, textbooks, dictionaries and grammars generally do not mark it. Minimal pairs do exist, however, such as yənaggərā́ ("he speaks to her", with the pronoun suffix -(h)ā́ "her") vs. yənaggə́rā ("they speak", feminine plural), both written .
Morphology
Nouns
Geʽez distinguishes two genders, masculine and feminine, the latter of which is sometimes marked with the suffix , e.g. ("sister"). These are less strongly distinguished than in other Semitic languages, as many nouns not denoting humans can be used in either gender: in translated Christian texts there is even a tendency for nouns to follow the gender of the noun with a corresponding meaning in Greek.
There are two numbers, singular and plural. The plural can be constructed either by suffixing to a word (regardless of gender, but often if it is a male human noun), or by using an internal plural.
Plural using suffix: ("year") plural , ("wilderness, uninhabited area") plural , ("elder, chief") plural , ("(arch)bishop") plural . Internal plural: ("house") plural , ("eyelid") plural .
Nouns also have two cases: the nominative, which is not marked, and the accusative, which is marked with final . As in other Semitic languages, there are at least two "states", absolute (unmarked) and construct (marked with as well).
+ Declension of ("elder, chief") Singular Plural Absolutestate Constructstate Absolutestate Constructstate Nominative Accusative
As in Classical/Standard Arabic, singular and plural nouns often take the same final inflectional affixes for case and state, as number morphology is achieved via attaching a suffix to the stem and/or an internal change in the stem.
There is some morphological interaction between consonant-final nouns and a pronoun suffix (see the table of suffix pronouns below). For example, when followed by ("my"), in both nominative and accusative the resulting form is (i.e. the accusative is not ), but with ("your", masculine singular) there's a distinction between nominative and accusative , and similarly with ("his") between nominative (< ) and accusative (< ).
Internal plural
Internal plurals follow certain patterns. Triconsonantal nouns follow one of the following patterns.
+ Patterns of internal plural for triconsonantal nouns (C=Consonant, V=Vowel)PatternSingularMeaningPluralʾaCCāC 'garment' 'horse' 'house' 'fast' 'name' ʾaCCuC 'country' 'ass' ʾaCCəC(t) 'rod' 'head' 'servant, slave' ʾaCāCəC(t) 'sheep' 'devil' CVCaC 'ear' 'foot' CVCaw 'hand' 'father' 'brother'
Quadriconsonantal and some triconsonantal nouns follow the following pattern. Triconsonantal nouns that take this pattern must have at least one "long" vowel (namely ).
+ Patterns of internal plural for quadriconsonantal nouns (C=Consonant, V=Vowel)PatternMeaningSingularPluralCaCāCəC(t) 'virgin' 'prince' 'star' 'window' 'chicken' 'night' 'earth' 'river' 'priest'
Pronominal morphology
In the independent pronouns, gender is not distinguished in the 1st person, and case is only distinguished in the 3rd person singular.
+ Personal independent pronouns Singular Plural 1st person 2nd person masculine feminine 3rd person masculine nominative , accusative feminine nominative , accusative
Suffix pronouns attach at the end of a noun, preposition or verb. The accusative/construct is lost when a plural noun with a consonant-final stem has a pronoun suffix attached (generally replaced by the added , as in , "his"), thereby losing the case/state distinction,: "Plural noun. All plural nouns have a suffix -i- added to the stem before the pronominal suffixes. [...] There are no distinct accusative forms." but the distinction may be retained in the case of consonant-final singular nouns. Furthermore, suffix pronouns may or may not attract stress to themselves. In the following table, pronouns without a stress mark (an acute) are not stressed, and vowel-initial suffixes have also been given the base in the script.
+ Suffix pronouns Default With consonant-final singular nouns With consonant-final plural nouns noun/prep. verb nominative accusative Singular 1st person , 2nd person masculine feminine , 3rd person masculine feminine Plural 1st person 2nd person masculine feminine 3rd person masculine feminine
Verb conjugation
Person Perfect Imperfect Indicative Jussive 1st person singular plural 2ndperson masculine singular plural feminine singular plural 3rdperson masculine singular plural feminine singular plural
Syntax
Noun phrases
Noun phrases have the following overall order: (demonstratives) noun (adjective)-(relative clause)
Adjectives and determiners agree with the noun in gender and number:
Relative clauses are introduced by a pronoun which agrees in gender and number with the preceding noun:
As in many Semitic languages, possession by a noun phrase is shown through the construct state. In Geʽez, this is formed by suffixing the construct suffix to the possessed noun, which is followed by the possessor, as in the following examples:
Another common way of indicating possession by a noun phrase combines the pronominal suffix on a noun with the possessor preceded by the preposition /la=/ 'to, for':
Lambdin notes that in comparison to the construct state, this kind of possession is only possible when the possessor is definite and specific. Lambdin also notes that the construct state is the unmarked form of possession in Geʽez.
Prepositional phrases
Geʽez is a prepositional language, as in the following example:
There are three special prepositions, /ba=/ 'in, with', /la=/ 'to, for', /ʼəm=/ 'from', which always appear as clitics, as in the following examples:
These proclitic prepositions in Geʽez are similar to the Hebrew inseparable prepositions.
Sentences
The normal word order for declarative sentences is VSO. Objects of verbs show accusative case marked with the suffix /-a/: