07 Amharic (The World's Major Languages).pdf

Amharic

Grover Hudson

1 History and Society

Amharic is the second most populous Semitic language, after Arabic, with some 20 million

speakers (16 million of the 1994 Ethiopian census + expected growth rate to 2009).

Amharic has long been the lingua franca of Ethiopia, and, despite recent movement

toward local-language primary education, in most schools still the language of instruc-

tion in the early grades. (Since the late 1940s, English has been the language of sec-

ondary and higher education.) It is recognised in the 1994 constitution as the

‘

working

language

of Ethiopian government.

Amharic is spoken as a second language by additional millions of Ethiopian urban

dwellers, and Amharic readers certainly represent the large majority of the reported

Ethiopian literacy rate of 42 per cent.

The internal grouping of Semitic languages is controversial, but three branches are

usually mentioned: northeast, northwest and south. Northwest includes Arabic, Hebrew

and Aramaic; northeast anciently known and long extinct Akkadian-Babylonian; and

southern Semitic the ancient and modern languages native to South Arabia plus

those of Ethiopia and Eritrea, of which there are some thirteen: Tigre and Tigrinya of

Eritrea, with Tigrinya also spoken by some 3.5 million in Ethiopia; in Ethiopia are

Amharic, Soddo (also known as Kistane), Mesqan, Chaha with several named dialects;

Inor also with several named dialects, Argobba a language not quite mutually intelli-

gible with Amharic, Harari (Adare), Silt ’ e with several named dialects, and Zay.

Ethiopian Semitic Gafat has been extinct for some decades, and Ge ‘ ez, for which there

are epigraphic records dating from perhaps 2500 BP , survives as the liturgical language

of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Ge ‘ ez seems not to be the ancestor of any modern

language.

The traditional home of Amharic is mountainous north-central Ethiopia, and Amharic

dialects are recognised in the regions of Begemder, Gojjam, Menz-Wello and Shoa.

These differ by features of pronunciation and grammatical morphology. The Ethiopian

capital city Addis Ababa, Shoa, is the centre of Ethiopian political, economic and social

life, and the Amharic variety of Addis Ababa has become recognised as prestigious.

’

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AMHARIC

There are Amharic manuscripts from the fourteenth century, and modern writings

and publication in Amharic include poetry, newspapers, literary and news magazines,

drama, novels, history, textbooks, etc. Amharic language magazines are published in

Europe and the US to serve the now considerable Ethiopian expatriate populations

there.

Amharic has borrowed words from Arabic, French, Italian, and now especially English,

but these are not prominent. Ge

ez is favoured as a source for new word invention.

Because other anciently known Semitic languages notably Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew,

and Akkadian are all in the Middle East, and because there is evidence of South Arabian

presence in northeast Africa from perhaps as early as 2500 BP , it is generally believed

that Semitic languages were brought into northeast Africa in near historic time by migra-

tions from South Arabia. However, because Semitic is only one of six branches in the

family of Afroasiatic languages, and because Africa is home to the ve non-Semitic

groups Chadic (West Africa), Berber (North Africa), Egyptian (Egypt), Omotic (Ethiopia

and eastern Sudan) and Cushitic (centred in Ethiopia), and because ancient Ethiopian

Semitic culture and the modern languages have many features not descendant from

those of South Arabia, it is also possible that Semitic origins are African and perhaps

Ethiopian.

Ethiopian Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic languages have certainly coexisted in Ethiopia

for at least two thousand years, and probably for this reason share numerous features of

an Ethiopian language type characterised by phonological, morphological and syntactic

features including glottalised ejective consonants, a special non-nite verb for verb

sequences, verb idioms based on the verb

‘

, and word-order characteristics of verb-

nal (SOV) languages. Many Semitic languages, indeed, are verb-initial (VSO) lan-

guages, including ancient Ethiopian Semitic Ge

‘

say

’

ez, but Amharic and the other modern

Ethiopian Semitic languages have some characteristics of both SOV and VSO types

(notably VSO-type prepositions), which suggests that they have changed this aspect of

their grammars under the inuence of Cushitic and Omotic neighbours. Similarly, most

Middle Eastern Semitic languages lack the Ethiopian areal feature of glottalised ejective

consonants. In this case, however, the presence of glottalised ejectives in Chadic, South

Arabian Semitic and some Arabic dialects suggests that in this characteristic Amharic

and Ethiopian Semitic languages preserve the original Afroasiatic type.

‘

2 Phonology

2.1 Consonants

Amharic has the thirty-one consonant phonemes of Table 35.1, where phonetic symbols

have International Phonetic Association (IPA) values except that y = palatal glide j, ˇ

and ˇ = alveopalatal affricates ʧ and ʤ ; š and ž = alveopalatal fricatives

ʃ and Z ; ˇ =

palatal nasal ɲ ; and r is a tap and long r (rr) a trill.

The series of labialised

, and h w (h w historically a velar < x w )

might be considered sequences of consonant + w (which do arise in word-formation),

but three facts suggest that these are best considered to be functionally unitary: (1) the

consonant and w are never separated by vowels in word-formation processes as are

root-consonant sequences; (2) they freely occur at the beginning of words where other

‘

velars

’

k w , g w , k w

’

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AMHARIC

Table 35.1 Consonants

Labial

Alveolar

Alveopalatal

Velar

Glottal

k, k w

Stops

vls

g, g w

k ’ ,k w

p ’

t ’

’

Affricates

ˇ ’

Fricatives

h, h w

’

Nasals

Lateral

Rhotic

Glides

Notes:

vl = voiceless, vd=voiced; gl=glottalized.

* Has also velar articulation.

consonant sequences are absent or rare; and (3) they have special forms in the Amharic

writing system.

Labials p, p

’

and v are rare: p and p

’

only in loanwords some of which like ityopp

’ ɑ

‘

< Greek are long established in the language, and the voiced labiodental

fricative v is only in recent borrowings such as volibol

Ethiopia

’

Consonant sequences are at most two; at the beginning of words these consist of

C+r/l as in gr

‘

volleyball

’

ɑ ‘

left

’

and blen

‘

pupil of eye

’

, though these may also be considered g-r

and b-len. The glottal stop

and labialised consonants do not occur at the end of syl-

lables (or, thus, words), and the alveopalatal nasal n

does not occur at the beginning of

native words. The glottal stop may be considered an allophonic effect of syllable-initial

vowels, as in [

]ityopp

’

ɑ ‘

Ethiopia

’

, s @ [

]

‘

hour, clock/watch

’

. Glottalised ejective s

’

is replaced by t

ˇ are free or idio-

lectal variants. Voiceless released stops are slightly aspirated. The nongeminate voiced

labial and velar stops b and g are spirants [ b ] and [

’

in rural speech, and the voiced alveopalatals

and

] between vowels, as in le[ b ] ɑ

] ɑ ‘ price ’ . The sequences k w

’ @ and k w

‘ thief ’ , w ɑ [

’ - vary as k ’ o and k ’ u, respectively, as

in k w

’ @ ss @ l @ ~k w

’ oss @ l @ ‘ he was wounded ’ , k w

’ -t ’ -r~k ’ ut ’ -r ‘ number ’ . The velar and labial

stops tend to be labialised before round vowels, e.g. b w ot ɑ ‘ place ’ , k ’

w um ‘ stop/stand! ’ .

Between vowels the glides w, y are very lax (h ɑ y ɑ [h ɑ

ɑ ] ‘ twenty ’ ). In northern dialects

except of Gondar there is palatalisation of obstruents as glide insertion before the front

vowels i and e, which vowels may in this case be centralised, thus bet > b y

e t ‘ house ’

and hid > h y -d ‘ go (Sg.2m.)! ’ In the Menz dialect velars k and k ’ are replaced by ˇ and

ˇ ’ respectively before i and e.

Except for h and ? , consonants may be long between vowels and at the end of words.

The long consonants are usually written here as sequences of like consonants, and

the glottalised consonants as CC

’

not C

’

. Grammatically signicant length may be

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AMHARIC

written C:, for example t: in m @ t:

, to emphasise that length in this case is a

function of the past conjugation and not a lexical characteristic of the verb

ɑ ‘

he hit

’

When followed by the sufx-i (instrumental, agentive, Sg.2f. subject) and -e of

the Sg.1 conjunct, alveolar consonants except r are replaced by corresponding alveo-

palatals: t>c

‘

hit

’

, d>

ˇ , s

’

and t

’

ˇ ’

, s>

, z>

(optionally

ˇ ), n > n

, and, except in

the Menz dialect, l>y. For example, t-m @ t-i > t-m @ c

(i)

‘

you (Sg.f.) hit

’

, hid-i > hi

ˇ (i)

‘

(Sg.2f.)!

.Thesufx -i maybeabsentwiththesereplacements.

(Sg.1 possessive -e does not have these palatalisations: bet-e

’

, y-z-:e > y-

‘

Iholding

’

‘

my house

’

2.2 Vowels

Amharic has the seven vowels of Table 35.2, in which phonetic symbols have International

Phonetic Association values (much writing on Amharic has ¨ and @ respectively for @

and -). Mid-front e has a variant e after h as in h[ e ]d @ ‘ he went ’ . Words begin and end

in any of the vowels except that - does not occur at the end of words except in the archaic

question suf x-n-,nor @ at the beginning of words except in the interjection @ r @ ‘ Really? ’

Table 35.2 Vowels

Front

Central

Back

High

Mid

Low

Non-low central vowels - and @ are usually elided by adjacent vowels, and - is elided

by @ , for example b @ - ɑ n ˇ i > b ɑ n ˇ i ‘ by you (Sg.2f.) ’ and b @ --rg-t ’ > b @ rg-t ’ ‘ truly ’ (lit. ‘ in

truth ’ ). A sequence of like vowels is reduced to one: ɑ sr ɑ - ɑ nd > ɑ sr ɑ nd ‘ eleven ’ , y-b @ l ɑ - ɑ l

> y-b @ l ɑ l ‘ he eats ’ .

The high central vowel - is usually considered to be inserted (epenthesised) to sepa-

rate disallowed consonant sequences which frequently arise in word-formation, as in

y-w @ sd-h > y-w @ sd-h

‘

he takes you (Sg.m.)

’

; most occurrences of this vowel may be

considered to be epenthetic.

Sg.2f. and Pl.3 verb-subject sufxes -i and -u may be replaced by y and w respec-

tively when followed by

: t-n @ gri-

ll-

>t-n @ gry

ll-

š ‘

you (Sg.f.) tell

’

, n @ gg @ r-u-

t >

n @ gg @ rw

‘

they told her

’

; alternatively y/w may be inserted in these cases: t-n @ griy

ll-

n @ gg @ ruw

t. Oppositely, the Sg.3m. and Pl.3 verb-subject prex y- is replaced by i

when it follows a consonant, as in s-y-hed > sihed

‘

when he goes

’

2.3 Stress

Stress is not prominent in Amharic. Suf xes except the plural suf x are unstressed,

and, generally, stress is on a nal closed syllable of a stem and otherwise next to last:

m @ skót ‘ window ’ , m´s ɑ ‘ lunch ’ , m´s ɑ -e ‘ my lunch ’ , m @ skót-ó ˇˇ ‘ windows ’ . But stress is

advanced to the vowel before a grammatically long consonant, as in k´bb @ d @ ‘ he

broke ’ , where the long consonant is a grammatical characteristic of the past tense; cf.

k @ bb´d @ , a male name, with next-to-last syllable stress.

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AMHARIC

3 Morphology

3.1 Pronouns

There are three pronoun sets (not including verb subject agreements), presented in

Table 35.3: independent, object sufx and possessive sufx pronouns. Object pronouns

are shown sufxed to the verb n @ gg @ r @ ‘

he told

’

and the possessive pronouns sufxed

to the noun bet

. Gender and politeness are distinguished in the Sg.2 and Sg.3

forms. Polite forms are for elders and adult unfamiliars.

Independent Sg.2pol.

‘

house

’

ntu is common only in Wello and Gondar. The four pronouns

with -ss each have alternate forms with -rs: -rs-u, -rs-w ɑ , -rs-wo and -rs- ɑ ˇˇ @ w,re ect-

ing the emphatic/re exive origin of these as possessive forms of *-rs ‘ head ’ or *k-rs

‘ belly ’ . The Pl.2/3 independent forms re ect a plural morpheme -nn @ -(asin-nn @ -t @ sf ɑ ye

‘ those associated with Tesfaye ’ ) pre xed to the Sg.m. forms, respectively.

Pronouns are usually expressed by bound rather than independent forms, as verb subject,

object and noun possessor. The verb subject pronouns are presented with discussion of

verbs and conjugations, in Section 3.6 below.

The bound Sg.3m. object pronoun -w (Table 35.3) is replaced by -t after round

vowels as in n @ gg @ ru-t ‘ they told him ’ and n @ gro-t ‘ he, telling him ’ . The Sg.1, Sg.3m.

and Pl.1 object suf xes have an initial vowel @ when they follow consonants other than

alveopalatals; thus n @ gg @ r-k- @ n

ˇ ‘

you (Sg.m.) told me

’

vs n @ gg @ r-

--n

ˇ ‘

you (Sg.f.) told

The

object and possessive Pl.2, Pl.3, and possessive Pl.1 sufxes include a plural morpheme

’

, and w-s @ d- @ w

‘

you (Sg.m.) take it/him!

’

vs w-s @ ˇ --w

‘

you (Sg.f.) take it/him!

’

probably cognate with the noun plural sufx-oc

are sufxed to verb stems and take

object sufxes as their objects, except that of Sg.3m. is - @ t (not - @ w) for example

f @ rr @ d @ -bb- @ n

Two prepositions -bb-

‘

at, on

’

and -ll-

‘

to, for

’

(the - is epen-

thetic). (When not sufxed to verb stems, prepositions accept independent pronouns as

their objects, as in b @ ne (< b @ --ne)

ˇ ‘

he judged against me

’

, y-f @ rd--ll- @ t

‘

he judges for him

’

‘

by/on me

’

, l

i (< l @ -

‘

for you (Sg.f.)

’

The bound Sg.3m. possessive pronoun -u

‘

his

’

is replaced by -w after vowels, for

example b @ k

. The vowel - of Sg.2m. and Sg.2f. possessive suf xes is

not epenthetic, as shown by the contrast of bet--

’

lo-w

‘

his mule

’

š ‘

your (Sg.f.) house

’

and mot-

š ‘

you

(Sg.f.) died ’ , the latter with vowelless object - š and no epenthesis.

Table 35.3 Three pronoun sets

Independent

Verb object

Possessive

Sg.

-ne

n @ gg @ r @ - ˇˇ

bet-e **

2 m ɑ nt @

n @ gg @ r @ -h

bet--h

n ˇ i

n @ gg @ r @ - š

bet-- š

pol

-sswo ~ ɑ ntu

n @ gg @ r @ -wo(t)

bet-wo

3 m-ssu

n @ gg @ r @ -w

bet-u

-ssw ɑ ~ -ss w

n @ gg @ r- ɑ t

bet-w ɑ

pol

-ss ɑ ˇˇ @ w

(=Pl.3)

Pl.

- ˇˇ ɑ

n @ gg @ r @ -n

bet- ɑ ˇˇ -n

-nn ɑ nt @

n @ gg @ r- ɑ ˇˇ -hu

bet- ɑ ˇˇ -hu

-nn @ ssu

n @ gg @ r- ɑ ˇˇ @ w

bet- ɑ ˇˇ @ w

Notes:

* ‘ He told me ’ ;** ‘ my house ’ .

598

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