Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 18:17:30 +0200 (METDST) From: Yohannes Negase-Sium To: Dehai@Thames.Stanford.EDU Subject: GEEZ Langauge Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: dehai-admin@Thames.Stanford.EDU Precedence: bulk Status: R Merhaba Dehaiers, > here are excerpts from Othman Saleh Sabby`s book(The History of Eritrea). Aja`azyah and GEEZ-people and Language Geez is considered the oldest semitic langauge in North East Africa.It was the langauge of the Sabae an Tribes which migrated to the Eritrean and Tigral Plateau from the southern Arabian peninsula(now Yemen) in the ancient age.The people who spoke Geez were called Aja'azyan and its literal meaning is,according to some researchers,"nomads"(Geeza and Ga'azi in Tigre dialect, one of the dialects derived from Geez, means "the nomads".Since the Aja'azyan migrated from their original homeland in the southern Arabian peninsula to settle in Eritrea and Tigral plateau,the first meaning of the word is probably correct).It was they who had introduced the means of cultivating hills by means of terracing hillsides, building with sheer stone unconnected by plaster,building oval temples and palaces,writing and other means of civilization and progress.It is sufficient that they gave the region its language. Many Geez inscriptions have been discovered in the Eritrean plateau,the writing of which can be divided into three categories or ages.The first represents the old models of Geez writing,and its script is the old Sabean script common in the age of the kings of Sheba(Saba who were known as"Makreb".Their reign extended almost from 1000 to 600 B.C.This kind of writing represented the migrants before their mingling with the local elements. The second resembles late script;this category came six centuries after the first.The third is Geez writings with a distinct script and language. The sabaean script was not very compatible with Geez pronounciation,so The Aksumites(the people who lived in the Eritrean and Tigral plateau),on first embracing Christianity,had to invent this script,which added to its letters something resembling stresses,in an independent style making it a compromise between Semitic and Greek scripts. THE SYRIAN MISSIONARIES INTRODUCE REFORMS INTO GEEZ AND ITS WRITING: Christianity in Eritrea introduced a few improvement into old Geez which became suitable for receiving the sacred texts.The credit for that is due to those missionaries who came to this region from Syria.The old language of Sheba as it appeared in the oldest Eritrean inscriptions was devoid of vowel stresses,so that if they wanted to write /Sanafi/ meaning writer,they wrote it as /shf/.The Syrian missionaries were able to introduce reforms into this langauge.They devised vowels stresses which they connected to the letters ,made writing proceed from left to right,and added three letters to its twenty six letters.The Syrian "syriac"missionaries had a Greek culture,so they added new religious expressions some of which were Syriac and some Greek.Nine of these missianaris fled to Aksum having refused to abide by the decrees of the council of Efzus in 431 A.D and the council of Caledonia in 451 A.D.Those missianaris who translated the Bible into Geez. Christianity was introduced into Eritrea and Aksum in an early age before those massionaris by many years age. If we compare now the Geez with the Armenian written literature which began in the 5th century A.D. One would come to the conclusion that we didn`t copied any letters from Armenians. The Geez alphabets havn`t uper and lower classes,but the Armenian has with different character. Ezah Wa`dahankum Tak Yohannes.N