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Topic: Ethiopic alphabet


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In the News (Thu 26 Nov 09)

  
  Ethiopic - HighBeam Encyclopedia   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
Ethiopic, extinct language of Ethiopia belonging to the North Ethiopic group of the South Semitic (or Ethiopic) languages, which, in turn, belong to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages).
Ethiopic (also called Geez or classical Ethiopic) ceased to be a spoken tongue in Ethiopia some time before the 14th cent.
Although the script used for Ethiopic and other Semitic tongues of Ethiopia is syllabic rather than alphabetic, it seems to be derived from the alphabetic South Semitic writing of the Old South Arabian inscriptions, to which it shows many similarities.
www.encyclopedia.com /doc/1E1-ethiopic.html   (342 words)

  
 Greek alphabet - Wikipedia
The fact that the Greek alphabet derives from an earlier Semitic script is uncontested, the exact source(s) of the Greek alphabet are however controversial.
(For alphabets with signs solely used to designate vowels NOT derived from the Greek, see Old Turkic alphabet, Ethiopic alphabet Indic alphabets[?] Old Hungarian alphabet[?]) The first vowels were alpha, epsilon, iota, omicron, and upsilon (copied from waw), modifications of either glides or breathing marks, which were mostly superfluous in Greek.
Originally there were several variants of the Greek alphabet, most importantly western (Chalcidian) and eastern (Ionic) Greek; the former gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet and thence to the Roman alphabet.
wikipedia.findthelinks.com /gr/Greek_alphabet.html   (1177 words)

  
 Afroasiatic languages - HighBeam Encyclopedia   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
The Arabic alphabet is employed, except in the case of the Tamazight and Tamasheq dialects, which continue to use an ancient Berber alphabet known as Tifinagh.
BC Early Hebrew writing was the alphabet of the Jews until they adopted Aramaic instead of Hebrew as their spoken language sometime before the Christian era, when they also began to use the Square Hebrew letters derived from the Aramaic writing.
This alphabet was taken to Ethiopia during the first millennium BC and is still used there, in modified form, for the Ethiopic languages.
www.encyclopedia.com /doc/1E1-afroasia.html   (2136 words)

  
 alphabet Information Center - graffiti alphabet
An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written alphabet coloring sheets symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past.
In later Pahlavi alphabet activities papyri, up to half of the graffiti alphabet remaining graphic distinctions were lost, and the script could no longer be read as a sequence of letters chinese alphabet at all, but calligraphy alphabet had to be learned as word symbols – that is, as logograms like Egyptian Demotic.
The theory claims that a greater level of abstraction alphabet beads is required due to the greater economy of symbols in alphabetic systems; and this abstraction needed to interpret phonemic symbols in turn has contributed in some way to the development of the societies which use it.
www.scipeeps.com /Sci-Linguistic_Topics_A_-_Co/alphabet.html   (2270 words)

  
 Simplified Spelling Society : Ethiopic writing system.
The Ethiopic system is used on a large scale in the representation of three Semitic languages, all confined to Ethiopia and Eritrea (the latter being formerly part of Ethiopia but now an independent state).
Giiz inscriptions in the Ethiopic script can be traced back to the 4th century AD when Giiz was the language of the empire of Aksum, a flourishing Semitic civilization based in what is now northern Ethiopia, but with wide military and trading contacts in the neighbouring territories and far beyond.
In theory, an alphabet has individual symbols (letters) representing phonemes with individual vowel and consonant symbols; a consonantal system represents only consonants, leaving the reader to guess the vowels; a syllabary has individual signs for syllables (consonant + vowel combinations); in practice, the systems are often mixed.
www.spellingsociety.org /journals/j19/ethiopic.php   (4950 words)

  
 Ge'ez language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
However, in Ethiopia Amharic (the main lingua franca of modern Ethiopia) or other local languages, and in Eritrea and Tigray Region in Ethiopia Tigrinya may be used for sermons.
As a member of South Semitic, it is closely related to Sabaean, and the Ge'ez alphabet later replaced Epigraphic South Arabian in the Kingdom of Aksum (although Epigraphic South Arabian was used for a few inscriptions into the 8th century, though not any South Arabian language since Dʿmt).
The translation of the Christian Bible was undertaken by Syrian monks known as the Nine Saints, who had come to Ethiopia in the 5th century fleeing the Byzantine persecution of the Monophysites.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ge'ez_language   (2160 words)

  
 AllRefer.com - Ethiopic (Language And Linguistics) - Encyclopedia
Ethiopic[EthEop´ik] Pronunciation Key, extinct language of Ethiopia belonging to the North Ethiopic group of the South Semitic (or Ethiopic) languages, which, in turn, belong to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages).
Because Ethiopic is close to Old South Arabian lexically and grammatically, it has been suggested that its speakers originally came from S Arabia, whence they apparently began to migrate to Ethiopia in the first millennium
B.C. The native Cushitic tongues of Ethiopia (which are also Afroasiatic languages) exerted a degree of influence on the newly arrived Semitic language or languages with respect to grammar, vocabulary, and phonology.
reference.allrefer.com /encyclopedia/E/Ethiopic.html   (377 words)

  
 Cell Phone to Save Ancient Language
First, they cut the 345 letters down to the most common 210; then, they created a base alphabet of 28 letters on a cell phone.
Ethiopic is still used for Ethiopian literature and in Ethiopian Orthodux Church services.
Ethiopia, with its 70 million people, is the third-largest country in Africa and the only one to have its own alphabet still in wide use.
www.socialstudiesforkids.com /articles/currentevents/ethiopic.htm   (240 words)

  
 Africa Update Archives
He establishes this discussion on the premise that the writing system of Ethiopic is actually a philosophy, because the ideographical iconography of the Ethiopic alphabet is conducive in generating knowledge, such as beliefs and concepts.
The text entitled Ethiopic decisively demonstrates that there is a great literary tradition in Ethiopia, and as such the third and fourth chapters carry the strongest arguments of the study.
Implicit in Ayele Bekerie's study of Ethiopic is the historiographic misconception that the Ethiopic writing system itself is representative of all Ethiopians, which is a fundamental weakness in the argument, for the Oromo, Somali, Afar, Gojjame, and even the Maji linguistics are not of Ethiopic origin.
www.ccsu.edu /Afstudy/upd6-1.html   (5160 words)

  
 Ethiopic: Free Encyclopedia Articles at Questia.com Online Library   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
Ä“thēŏpˈĭk, extinct language of Ethiopia belonging to the North Ethiopic group of the South Semitic (or Ethiopic) languages, which, in turn, belong to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages).
Because Ethiopic is close to Old South Arabian lexically and grammatically, it has been suggested that its speakers originally came from S Arabia, whence they apparently began to migrate to Ethiopia in the first millennium b.c.
ETHIOPIC etheop ik, extinct language of Ethiopia belonging to the North Ethiopic group of the South Semitic (or Ethiopic) languages, which, in turn, belong to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages...
www.questia.com /library/encyclopedia/ethiopic.jsp   (1514 words)

  
 Ancient Scripts: Ethiopic   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
The elegant Ethiopic script is another interesting story in the family tree of Proto-Sinaitic script.
Ethiopic is an offshoot of the South Arabian script.
The Ethiopic script was used for the liturgical language Ge'ez as well as modern languages like Amharic (the official language of Ethiopia), Tigre, Tigrinya, and other languages of Ethiopia.
www.ancientscripts.com /ethiopic.html   (237 words)

  
 J. M. Harden, An introduction to Ethiopic Christian Literature (1926)
The characters too of the Geez alphabet are obviously a development of the Sabean; in fact two of the earliest inscriptions extant in Geez are written in Sabean letters.
In Ethiopic, on the other hand, the form of the consonant itself is slightly modified according to the vowel with which it is to be sounded.
Nearly every Ethiopic manuscript, whether it be biblical, or liturgical, or theological, or historical, or philosophical, or even but a magic scroll, begins with 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God,' or some similar words.
www.ccel.org /p/pearse/morefathers/harden_ethiopic_literature.htm   (20071 words)

  
 BBC News | AFRICA | Ancient alphabet enters cyber age
The alphabet used in Ethiopia and Eritrea is Africa's oldest.
Ethiopic characters also have to be attuned to American Standard Coding for Information Interchange (ASCII) which assigns letters to the numerical codes which the computer works with.
Therefore any Ethiopic alphabet software is a package which deals with the designing of characters, keyboard layout and printer set-up.
news.bbc.co.uk /1/hi/world/africa/609217.stm   (800 words)

  
 Ancient Scripts: Alphabet   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
This alphabet, though, eventually disappeared from the mainstream, and survived as the Samaritan script.
In Israel, it became the "Jewish" alphabet, the direct descendant of which is the modern Hebrew alphabet.
Traditionally the Greeks held that their alphabet was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, and many scholars agree with this as well.
www.ancientscripts.com /alphabet.html   (1403 words)

  
 Cultural identity and local content development on the World Wide Web : the CyberEthiopia Initiative   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
Ethiopians call their alphabet "fidel." The Ethiopic alphabet consists of 26 letters, all representing consonants, that can be transformed into syllabic symbols by attaching the appropriate vocalic markers to the letters.
The particularity of using ethiopic script for written communications creates even more challenges in the full participation and contribution to the information society and their ability to use the opportunities such a society could offer to their development.
There is an obvious lack of standards in the computerization of the Ethiopic Alphabet despite the attempts of several associations to harmonize the Ethiopic Character sets in order to have a unique encoding system.
www.cyberethiopia.com /infocom2004/paper   (2746 words)

  
 Senamirmir Project: Ethiopic
Ethiopic refers to Ge'ez or Classic Ge'ez, one of the ancient languages of Ethiopia which is now mainly used in Ethiopian Orthodox Church as liturgical language.
Ethiopic Script is syllabic, that is each character embodies "consonant+vowel" characteristics.
The Unicode Ethiopic standard is by far a promising one.
www.senamirmir.com /projects/ethiopic/ethiopic_proj.html   (568 words)

  
 [No title]
There it became the progenitor of the Ethiopic alphabet, and this in turn gave birth to the modern Amharic, Tigre, Tigrinya and other alphabets of modern Ethiopia.
Through this, the Ethiopic script has a great superiority in clarity over the other kinds of Semitic script, written purely with consonants, and it can be said without hesitation to be the most complete of all varieties of Semitic script." At this point Old Abyssinian script was no longer an "alphabet" but now a "syllabary".
It is important to note a 2nd distinction between Ge'ez and Ethiopic fidel; not only do the number of letters in the fidels differ, but so do the SOUNDS of the characters that are common to both sets.
www.abyssiniacybergateway.net /fidel/HISTORY.txt   (1653 words)

  
 SudanTribune article : Ethiopia’s ancient alphabet could make a debut on SMS   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
The Ethiopic script is used for Amharic — the national language of Ethiopia’s 70 million people.
Ethiopic is the medium for Ethiopian literature and is still in use in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, chanted by priests in incense-filled churches across the Horn of Africa nation.
The script, however, is incompatible with modern communication devices because of its ungainly 345-letter alphabet, compared with 26 letters in the Latin alphabet.
www.sudantribune.com /article.php3?id_article=6459   (341 words)

  
 nt-text.net - The Bible of the Ethiopians
It has been theorized that the Ethiopic alphabet is actually derived from the Old Hebrew alphabet, abandoned by the Jews themselves in the post-Exilic period.
Ethiopic, however, added vowel symbols at a very early date -- not as extra letters but as tags attached to letters.
Nor are the dates of the earliest manuscripts much help, since all Ethiopic manuscripts are of the eleventh century or later and the vast majority are of the fourteenth century or later.
www.nt-text.net /eth/eth_index.htm   (482 words)

  
 Linguistics 201: The Alphabet
      This first alphabet spread quickly to neighboring peoples and was modified to fit the phonology of each language in turn.  By 1250 BC the original 28 symbols had been simplified to 24 to write the Phoenician language spoken in what is now Lebanon.
The English alphabet is a variety of the Roman.  The IPA can even be thought of as essentially a Latin-based script; as is modern Navajo and languages completely unrelated to the languages of Europe.
Cyrillic was devised to write the language of the East-European Slavs in the 10th century by Byzantine Greek missionaries.
pandora.cii.wwu.edu /vajda/ling201/test4materials/Writing3.htm   (832 words)

  
 A Look at Ethiopic Numerals
Ethiopic numerals have a familiar quality about them that seems to catch the eye and pique the imagination of the first-time viewer.
The Ethiopic numerals are said to have come from the interpretation of the Milesian system by Ethiopia's Nile brethren the Egyptian Copts.
Ilf, the final Ethiopic numeral, `፼', is often confused as the representation of 1,000.
www.geez.org /Numerals   (749 words)

  
 JAARS Museum of the Alphabet: Ethiopic Alphabet
During the early fourth century A.D., the 22 consonants took on vowel indications for the seven vowel sounds of their Ge'ez lanuage.
They were written with small appendages to the consonant letters, with modifications of their shapes.
Frumentius' alphabet is still the national alphabet of Ethiopia.
www.jaars.org /museum/alphabet/galleries/ethiopic.htm   (175 words)

  
 The Head Heeb: Of peasants and cellphones
The Ethiopic alphabet is already available for personal computers, but such hardware is too expensive for the average Ethiopian.
The key problem in developing Ethiopic text messaging technology was the fact that the alphabet has 345 characters, making it unwieldy for a cell phone keypad.
Their "alphabet" is really a syllabary, and is better than using the cumbersome Latin alphabet in the limitations of cell phone texting.
headheeb.blogmosis.com /archives/026803.html   (507 words)

  
 Afroasiatic languages. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05
B.C. the Aramaic alphabet was used throughout the Middle East.
This alphabet was taken to Ethiopia during the first millennium
B.C. and is still used there, in modified form, for the Ethiopic languages.
www.bartleby.com /65/af/Afroasia.html   (2033 words)

  
 a12n-forum : [A12n-forum] Early history of Ethiopic/Ge'ez localization   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
There are a couple of minor innacuracies: First, Ethiopic is not the only indigenous African script, but it is certainly one of the most used.
DZO Wednesday, 19 January, 2000, 18:04 GMT Ancient alphabet enters cyber age http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/609217.stm The alphabet used in Ethiopia and Eritrea is Africa's oldest.
Standardisation headaches Therefore any Ethiopic alphabet software is a package which deals with the designing of characters, keyboard layout and printer set-up.
www.kabissa.org /archives/a12n-forum/msg00364.html   (875 words)

  
 Nabataea: The Multi-Alphabet Theory
It was used in Syria as early as the 11th century BC and is probably the forerunner of all subsequent alphabetic scripts, with the possible exception of those scripts classified as South Semitic.
The Ethiopic alphabet, developed from Sabaean in Ethiopia, is the only one still in use.
The South Arabian alphabet was used primarily in the Sabaean and Minaean kingdoms in the Southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.
nabataea.net /write2.html   (1745 words)

  
 Amharic language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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').
You will need a font that supports Ethiopic, such as GF Zemen Unicode, in order to view the fidel.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Amharic_language   (2172 words)

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