Ge'ez Script - History and Origins

History and Origins

The earliest inscriptions of Ethio-Semitic in Ethiopia and Eritrea date to the 9th century BC in Epigraphic South Arabian (ESA), an Abjad shared with contemporary kingdoms in South Arabia. After the 7th and 6th centuries BC, however, variants of the script arose, evolving in the direction of the Ge'ez abugida (a writing system that is also called an alphasyllabary). This evolution can be seen most clearly in evidence from inscriptions (mainly graffiti on rocks and caves) in Tigray region in northern Ethiopia and the former province of Akkele Guzay in Eritrea. By the first centuries AD, what is called "Old Ethiopic" or the "Old Ge'ez alphabet" arose, an abjad written left-to-right (as opposed to boustrophedon like ESA) with letters basically identical to the first-order forms of the modern vocalized alphabet (e.g. "k" in the form of "kä"). There were also minor differences such as the letter "g" facing to the right, instead of to the left as in vocalized Ge'ez, and a shorter left leg of "l", as in ESA, instead of equally-long legs in vocalized Ge'ez (resembling the Greek letter lambda, somewhat). Vocalization of Ge'ez occurred in the fourth century, and though the first completely vocalized texts known are inscriptions by Ezana, vocalized letters predate him by some years, as an individual vocalized letter exists in a coin of his predecessor Wazeba. Roger Schneider has also pointed out (in an early 1990s unpublished paper) anomalies in the known inscriptions of Ezana that imply that he was consciously employing an archaic style during his reign, indicating that vocalization could have occurred much earlier. As a result, some believe that the vocalization may have been adopted to preserve the pronunciation of Ge'ez texts due to the already moribund or extinct status of Ge'ez, and that, by that time, the common language of the people were already later Ethio-Semitic languages. At least one of Wazeba's coins from the late 3rd/early 4th century contain a vocalized letter, some 30 or so years before Ezana. Kobishchanov, Daniels, and others have suggested possible influence from the Brahmic family of alphabets in vocalization, as they are also abugidas, and Aksum was an important part of major trade routes involving India and the Greco-Roman world throughout the common era of antiquity.

According to the beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the original consonantal form of the Ge'ez fidel was divinely revealed to Henos "as an instrument for codifying the laws", and the present system of vocalisation is attributed to a team of Aksumite scholars led by Frumentius (Abba Selama), the same missionary said to have converted King Ezana to Christianity in the 4th century AD. A separate tradition, recorded by Aleqa Taye, holds that the Ge'ez consonantal alphabet was first adapted by Zegdur, a legendary king of the Ag'azyan Sabaean dynasty held to have ruled in Ethiopia c. 1300 BC.

Ge'ez has 26 consonantal letters. Compared to the inventory of 29 consonants in the South Arabian alphabet, continuants of ġ, ẓ and the interdental fricatives (ḏ, ṯ) are missing, as well as South Arabian s3 (Ge'ez Sawt ሠ being derived from South Arabian s2 ). On the other hand, emphatic P̣ait ጰ, a Ge'ez innovation, is a modification of Ṣädai ጸ, while Pesa ፐ is based on Tawe ተ.

Thus, there are 24 correspondences of Ge'ez and the South Arabian alphabet:

Many of the letter names are cognate with those of Phoenician, and may thus be assumed for Proto-Sinaitic.