Эфиопияның Амхары тілі

Semitic language of Ethiopia

Amharic (/æ//m/'/h//ær//ɪ//k/ amHARRik or /ɑː//m/'/h//ɑr//ɪ//k/ ahmHARik; , ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns in Ethiopia. The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions. As of 2020, it has over 33,700,000 mother tongue speakers and more than 25,100,000 second language speakers in 2019, making the total number of speakers over 58,800,000. Amharic is the largest, most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo). Amharic is also the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic). Amharic is written left to right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script. The segmental writing system in which consonant vowel sequences are written as units is called an abugida (አቡጊዳ). The graphemes are called fidäl (ፊደል), which means "script", "alphabet", "letter", or "character". There is no universally agreed upon Romanization of Amharic into Latin script. The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specializing in Ethiopian Semitic languages.

Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia, language of the courts, the language of trade and everyday communications and of the military since the late 12th century. The Amhara nobles supported the Zagwe prince Lalibela in his power struggle against his brothers which led him to make Amharic Lessana Negus as well as fill the Amhara nobles in the top positions of his Kingdom. The appellation of "language of the king" (; "Lisane Negus," "Ye Negus QwanQwa") and its use in the royal court are otherwise traced to the Amhara Emperor Yekuno Amlak. It is one of the official languages of Ethiopia, together with other regions like Oromo, Somali, Afar, and Tigrinya. Amharic is an Afro Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Geʽez, or Ethiopic, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church; Amharic is written in a slightly modified form of the alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language. There are 34 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable. There are also 49 "wa" letters, which form compound sounds involving "w." All together, the alphabet has some 280 letters. Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia. The 2007 census reported that Amharic was spoken by 21.6 million native speakers in Ethiopia. More recent sources state the number of first language speakers in 2018 as nearly 32 million, with another 25 million second language speakers in Ethiopia. Furthermore, Amharic is considered a holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide.

Early Afro Asiatic populations speaking proto Semitic, proto Cushitic and proto Omotic languages would have diverged by the fourth or fifth millennium BC. Shortly afterwards, the proto Cushitic and proto Omotic groups would have settled in the Ethiopian highlands, with the proto Semitic speakers crossing the Sinai Peninsula into Asia Minor. A later return movement of peoples from South Arabia would have introduced the Semitic languages to Ethiopia. Linguistic analysis suggests the presence of Semitic languages in Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC. Levine indicates that by the end of that millennium, the core inhabitants of Greater Ethiopia would have consisted of dark skinned agropastoralists speaking Afro Asiatic languages of the Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic branches. Other scholars such as Messay Kebede and Daniel E. Alemu argue that migration across the Red Sea was defined by reciprocal exchange, if it even occurred at all, and that Ethio Semitic speaking ethnic groups should not be characterized as foreign invaders. Amharic is a South Ethio Semitic language, along with Gurage, Argobba, Harari, and others. Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Ethio Semitic language and eventually absorbed the Semitic population. Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum. The northernmost South Ethio Semitic speakers, or the proto Amhara, remained in constant contact with their North Ethio Semitic neighbors, evidenced by linguistic analysis and oral traditions. A 7th century southward shift of the center of gravity of the Kingdom of Aksum and the ensuing integration and Christianization of the proto Amhara also resulted in a high prevalence of Geʽez sourced lexicon in Amharic. Some time after the 9th century AD, Amharic diverged from its closest relative, Argobba, probably due to religious differences as the Argobba adopted Islam. In 1983, Lionel Bender proposed that Amharic may have been constructed as a pidgin as early as the 4th century AD to enable communication between Aksumite soldiers speaking Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages, but this hypothesis has not garnered widespread acceptance. The preservation in Old Amharic of VSO word order and gutturals typical of Semitic languages, Cushitic influences shared with other Ethio Semitic languages (especially those of the Southern branch), and the number of geographically distinct Cushitic languages that have influenced Amharic at different points in time (e. g. Oromo influence beginning in the 16th century) support a natural evolution of Amharic from a Proto Ethio Semitic language with considerable Cushitic influences (similar to Gurage, Tigrinya, etc. ).

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 will be hit'. Gemination is not indicated in Amharic orthography, but Amharic readers typically do not 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. Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu, who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform, indicated gemination in his novel Love to the Grave by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice is rare.

For reflexive pronouns ('myself', 'yourself', etc. ), Amharic adds the possessive suffixes to the noun ራስ ras 'head': ራሴ rase 'myself', ራሷ raswa 'herself', etc.

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

Amharic nouns can have a masculine or feminine gender. There are several ways to express gender. An example is the old suffix t for femininity. 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. ityop̣p̣ya (a)wi 'Ethiopian (m.)' vs. ityop̣p̣ya 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 qǝt(t)ul, e. g. nǝgus 'king' vs. nǝgǝs t 'queen' and qǝddus 'holy (m.)' vs. qǝddǝs t 'holy (f.)'. Some nouns and adjectives take a feminine marker it: lǝǧ 'child, boy' vs. lǝǧ it 'girl'; bäg 'sheep, ram' vs. bäg it 'ewe'; šǝmagǝlle 'senior, elder (m.)' vs. šǝmagǝll it 'old woman'; ṭoṭa 'monkey' vs. ṭoṭ 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.

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 femininity, e. g. wänd lǝǧ 'boy', set lǝǧ '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 ṭǝǧǧa 'calf (m.)'; awra doro 'cock (rooster)'; set doro 'hen'.

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. wǝšša 'dog', wǝšša ʷočč 'dogs'; käbäro 'drum', käbäro ʷočč 'drums'. Nouns that end in a front vowel pluralize using ʷočč or yočč, e. g. ṣähafi 'scholar', ṣähafi ʷočč or ṣähafi yočč 'scholars'. Another possibility for nouns ending in a vowel is to delete the vowel and use plain očč, as in wǝšš 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 (Leslau 1995:173). Some kinship terms have two plural forms with a slightly different meaning. For example, wändǝmm 'brother' can be pluralized as wändǝmm očč 'brothers' but also as wändǝmmam ač 'brothers of each other'. Likewise, ǝhǝt 'sister' can be pluralized as ǝhǝt očč ('sisters'), but also as ǝtǝmm am ač 'sisters of each other'. In compound words, the plural marker is suffixed to the second noun: betä krǝstiyan 'church' (lit. house of Christian) becomes betä krǝstiyan očč 'churches'.

Amsalu Aklilu has pointed out that Amharic has inherited a large number of old plural forms directly from Classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez) (Amharic: gǝ'ǝz) (Leslau 1995:172). There are basically two archaic pluralising 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 sometimes used to form new plurals, but this is only considered grammatical in more established cases. Examples of the external plural: mämhǝr 'teacher', mämhǝr an; ṭäbib 'wise person', ṭäbib an; kahǝn 'priest', kahǝn at; qal 'word', qal at. Examples of the internal plural: dǝngǝl 'virgin', dänagǝl; hagär 'land', ahǝgur. Examples of combined systems: nǝgus 'king', nägäs t; kokäb 'star', käwakǝb t; mäṣǝhaf 'book', mäṣahǝf t.

As in other Semitic languages, Amharic verbs use a combination of prefixes and suffixes to indicate the subject, distinguishing three persons, two numbers, and (in the second and third persons singular) two genders.

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.

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 yǝhonall 'He (probably) has said'.

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', dǝda 'mute, dumb, silent', bič̣a 'yellow'.

yä kätäma 'urban' (lit. 'from the city'); yä krǝstǝnna 'Christian' (lit. 'of Christianity'); yä wǝšät 'wrong' (lit. 'of falsehood').

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. kǝfu geta 'a bad master'; (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. tǝllǝq 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. tǝllǝq 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 lǝǧ mäṭṭačč (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 form. Thus, 'diligent students' can be rendered tǝgu tämariʷočč (lit. diligent student PLUR) or təguʷočč tämariʷočč (lit. diligent PLUR student PLUR).

Not much has been published about Amharic dialect differences. All dialects are mutually intelligible, but certain minor variations are noted.

The Beta Israel who today live mostly in Israel speak a dialect of Amharic called Jewish Amharic (Hebrew:אמהרית מעוברת). It replaced many Christian phrases with Jewish ones. One example is the replacing the phrase "It is good that Mary had pardoned you" with "It is good that god has relieved you peacefully", these phrases are used to congratulate a mother on successful childbirth. Another example is calling a type of Grasshopper "Moses's horses" instead of "Mary's horses". This variety also contains influence from Modern Hebrew due to the large Beta Israel presence in Israel. Currently Jewish Amharic is declining as the Beta Israel gradually abandon Amharic in favor of Hebrew. Many Rastafarians learn Amharic as a second language, as they consider it to be sacred. After Haile Selassie's 1966 visit to Jamaica, study circles in Amharic were organized in Jamaica as part of the ongoing exploration of Pan African identity and culture. Various reggae artists in the 1970s, including Ras Michael, Lincoln Thompson and Misty in Roots, have sung in Amharic, thus bringing the language to a wider audience. The Abyssinians, a reggae group, have also used Amharic, most notably in the song "Satta Massagana". The title was believed to mean "give thanks"; however, this phrase means "he thanked" or "he praised", as säṭṭä means "he gave", and amässägänä "thanks" or "praise". The correct way to say "give thanks" in Amharic is one word, misgana. The word "satta" has become a common expression in the Rastafari dialect of English, Iyaric, meaning "to sit down and partake".

Amharic is supported on most major Linux distributions, including Fedora and Ubuntu. The Amharic script is included in Unicode, in the Ethiopic block (U+1200 – U+137F). Nyala font is included on Windows 7 (see YouTube video) and Vista (Amharic Language Interface Pack) to display and edit using the Amharic Script. In February 2010, Microsoft released its Windows Vista operating system in Amharic, enabling Amharic speakers to use its operating system in their language. Google added Amharic to its Language Tools which allows typing Amharic Script online without an Amharic Keyboard. Since 2004 Wikipedia has had an Amharic language Wiki that uses Ethiopic script.

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