07 Amharic (The World's Major Languages)

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

, 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.

594

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

, 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

ﬁve 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-

ﬁnite verb for verb

sequences, verb idioms based on the verb

‘say’, and word-order characteristics of verb-

ﬁnal (SOV) languages. Many Semitic languages, indeed, are verb-initial (VSO) lan-
guages, including ancient Ethiopian Semitic Ge

‘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 in

ﬂuence 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, c

and

˚ˇ

= alveopalatal affricates

and

;

š and ž = alveopalatal fricatives

and

; n

ˇ =

palatal nasal

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

The series of labialised

‘velars’ k

, g

, k

’, and h

historically a velar < x

)

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

AMHARIC

595

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’

‘Ethiopia’ < Greek are long established in the language, and the voiced labiodental
fricative v is only in recent borrowings such as volibol

‘volleyball’.

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

C+r/l as in gr

ɑ ‘left’ and blen ‘pupil of eye’, though these may also be considered gi-rɑ

and bi-len. The glottal stop

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

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

ˇ 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’y

ɑ ‘Ethiopia’, s

[

ɑt ‘hour, clock/watch’. Glottalised ejective s’

is replaced by t

’ in rural speech, and the voiced alveopalatals ž and

˚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 [

] between vowels, as in le[

‘thief’, w

ɑ[

]

ɑ ‘price’. The sequences k

’

and k

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

in k

’

’oss

‘he was wounded’, k

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

stops tend to be labialised before round vowels, e.g. b

ɑ ‘place’, k’

‘stop/stand!’.

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

ɑyɑ [hɑ

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

et ‘house’

and hid > h

i-d

‘go (Sg.2m.)!’ In the Menz dialect velars k and k’ are replaced by cˇ 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’C’. Grammatically signiﬁcant length may be

Table 35.1 Consonants

Labial

Alveolar

Alveopalatal

Velar

Glottal

Stops

vls

k, k

g, g

’

’, k

’

Affricates

˚ˇ

ˇ’

Fricatives

h, h

’

Nasals

Lateral

Rhotic

Glides

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

* Has also velar articulation.

AMHARIC

596

written C:, for example t: in m

ɑ ‘he hit’, to emphasise that length in this case is a

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

‘hit’.

When followed by the suf

ﬁx -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

ˇ, d >

˚ˇ

, s

’ and t’ > cˇ’, s > š, z > ž (optionally ž >

˚ˇ

), n > n

ˇ, and, except in

the Menz dialect, l > y. For example, ti-m

t-i > ti-m

ˇ(i) ‘you (Sg.f.) hit’, hid-i > hi

˚ˇ

(i)

‘Go

(Sg.2f.)!

’, yi-z-:e > yi-ž:e ‘I holding’. The sufﬁx -i may be absent with these replacements.

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

‘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 i-). 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 i- does not occur at the end of words except in the archaic
question suf

ﬁx -ni-, nor

at the beginning of words except in the interjection

‘Really?’

Non-low central vowels i- and

are usually elided by adjacent vowels, and i- is elided

, for example b

ɑncˇi > bɑncˇi ‘by you (Sg.2f.)’ and b

-i-rgi-t

’ > b

rgi-t

’ ‘truly’ (lit. ‘in

truth

’). A sequence of like vowels is reduced to one:

ɑsrɑ-ɑnd > ɑsrɑnd ‘eleven’, yi-b

ɑ-ɑl

> yi-b

ɑl ‘he eats’.

The high central vowel i- 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 > yi-w

sdi-h

‘he takes you (Sg.m.)’; most occurrences of this vowel may be

considered to be epenthetic.

Sg.2f. and Pl.3 verb-subject suf

ﬁxes -i and -u may be replaced by y and w respec-

tively when followed by

ɑ: ti-n

gri-

ɑlli-š > ti-n

gry

ɑlli-š ‘you (Sg.f.) tell’, n

r-u-

ɑt >

ɑt ‘they told her’; alternatively y/w may be inserted in these cases: ti-n

griy

ɑlli-š,

ruw

ɑt. Oppositely, the Sg.3m. and Pl.3 verb-subject preﬁx 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

ﬁxes except the plural sufﬁx are unstressed,

and, generally, stress is on a

ﬁnal closed syllable of a stem and otherwise next to last:

skót

‘window’, mı´s

ɑ ‘lunch’, mı´sɑ-e ‘my lunch’, m

skót-óc

ˇcˇ ‘windows’. But stress is

advanced to the vowel before a grammatically long consonant, as in k

´ bb

‘he

broke

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

´ d

, a male name, with next-to-last syllable stress.

Table 35.2 Vowels

Front

Central

Back

High

Mid

Low

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3 Morphology

3.1 Pronouns

There are three pronoun sets (not including verb subject agreements), presented in
Table 35.3: independent, object suf

ﬁx and possessive sufﬁx pronouns. Object pronouns

are shown suf

ﬁxed to the verb n

‘he told’ and the possessive pronouns sufﬁxed

to the noun bet

‘house’. Gender and politeness are distinguished in the Sg.2 and Sg.3

forms. Polite forms are for elders and adult unfamiliars.

Independent Sg.2pol.

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

with i-ss each have alternate forms with i-rs: i-rs-u, i-rs-w

ɑ, i-rs-wo and i-rs-ɑcˇcˇ

w, re

ﬂect-

ing the emphatic/re

ﬂexive origin of these as possessive forms of *i-rs ‘head’ or *ki-rs

‘belly’. The Pl.2/3 independent forms reﬂect a plural morpheme i-nn

- (as in i-nn

-t

ɑye

‘those associated with Tesfaye’) preﬁxed 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

ru-t

‘they told him’ and n

gro-t

‘he, telling him’. The Sg.1, Sg.3m.

and Pl.1 object suf

ﬁxes have an initial vowel

when they follow consonants other than

alveopalatals; thus n

r-k-

ˇnˇ ‘you (Sg.m.) told me’ vs n

š-i-nˇnˇ ‘you (Sg.f.) told

’, and wi-s

‘you (Sg.m.) take it/him!’ vs wi-s

˚ˇ

-i-w

‘you (Sg.f.) take it/him!’ The

object and possessive Pl.2, Pl.3, and possessive Pl.1 suf

ﬁxes include a plural morpheme

ɑcˇcˇ probably cognate with the noun plural sufﬁx -ocˇcˇ.

Two prepositions -bb-

‘at, on’ and -ll- ‘to, for’ are sufﬁxed to verb stems and take

object suf

ﬁxes as their objects, except that of Sg.3m. is -

t (not -

w) for example

-bb-

ˇnˇ ‘he judged against me’, yi-f

rd-i-ll-

‘he judges for him’ (the i- is epen-

thetic). (When not suf

ﬁxed to verb stems, prepositions accept independent pronouns as

their objects, as in b

ne (< b

-i-ne)

‘by/on me’, l

ɑncˇi (< l

ɑncˇi) ‘for you (Sg.f.)’.)

The bound Sg.3m. possessive pronoun -u

‘his’ is replaced by -w after vowels, for

example b

’lo-w ‘his mule’. The vowel i- of Sg.2m. and Sg.2f. possessive sufﬁxes is

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

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.

i-ne

-n

ˇnˇ

bet-e

ɑnt

-h

bet-i-h

ɑncˇi

bet-i-

pol

i-sswo ~

ɑntu

-wo(t)

bet-wo

i-ssu

-w

bet-u

i-ssw

ɑ ~ i-ss

ɑt

bet-w

pol

i-ss

ɑcˇcˇ

(=Pl.3)

Pl.

i-n

ˇnˇ

-n

bet-

ɑcˇcˇi-n

i-nn

ɑnt

ɑcˇcˇi-hu

bet-

ɑcˇcˇi-hu

i-nn

ssu

ɑcˇcˇ

bet-

ɑcˇcˇ

Notes: * ‘He told me’; ** ‘my house’.

AMHARIC

598

ﬂexive-emphatic pronouns are formed as possessives of r

ɑs ‘head’, for example

ɑs-e ‘I myself’, rɑs-ɑcˇcˇi-n ‘we ourselves’ (i-ne rɑse m

’

ɑhu ‘I myself came’).

Interrogative pronouns include m

ɑn ‘who’, mi-n ‘what’ (mi-ndi-r in mi-ndi-r n

(> mi-ndi-nn

‘What is it?’), m

ˇe ‘when’, and y

‘where’. These are sufﬁxed by -m

(-i-m with epenthesis) to provide negative inde

ﬁnite pronouns: m

ɑn-i-m ɑlm

’

ɑm

‘nobody came’, y

t-i-m

ɑlhedi-m ‘I won’t go anywhere’. Other question words are

ti-n

ˇnˇ

ɑw ‘which’, si-nt ‘how much’, l

mi-n

‘why’ (lit. ‘for what’), i-nd

-mi-n

‘how’ (i-nd

‘like’), and i-ndet ‘how’ (< i-nd

-y

‘like where’).

3.2 Nouns

3.2.1 Gender

The gender of a noun is apparent in its choice of pronoun, agreement with the verb,
demonstrative, and de

ﬁnite article sufﬁx. There is no neuter, and the feminine class is

mostly natural, except for a few inanimate nouns including the sun and moon, names of
countries, and small animals such as cats and mice, perhaps re

ﬂecting a diminutive

usage of the feminine. Many feminine human nouns end in an archaic and non-productive
feminine t, including i-nn

ɑt ‘mother’, i-hi-t ‘sister’, ni-gi-st ‘queen’ (cf. ni-gus ‘king’), and a

few nouns have feminine suf

ﬁx -it, including

ɑrogit ‘old woman’ (ɑroge ‘old’) and

ɑndit ‘a little one (f.)’ (ɑnd ‘one’) (this also in the fem. deﬁnite article -it-u).

3.2.2 Deﬁniteness

ﬁnite common nouns have sufﬁxes -u/-w (-w after vowels) for masc. and -w

ɑ or less

commonly -itu for fem. Masc. -u and -w

ɑ are identical to Sg.3m. possessives: wi-šɑ-w

‘the dog (m.)’ (or ‘his dog’), di-mm

t-w

ɑ ‘the cat (f.)’ (or ‘her cat’) or di-mm

t-itu

‘the

cat (f.)

’. The deﬁnite sufﬁx is mutually exclusive with the possessives. Nouns s

‘man’ and set ‘woman’ have special deﬁnite-speciﬁc forms s

w-i-yye-w

‘the man’,

set-i-yyo-w

ɑ ‘the woman’.

3.2.3 Indeﬁnite Article

The numeral

ɑnd ‘one’ functions as an indeﬁnite-speciﬁc article, as in ɑnd bet t

’

ɑtt’

‘a (certain) house burned down’. Repetition of

ɑnd expresses plural indeﬁnite ‘some,

various, a few

’:

ɑndɑnd bet t

’

ɑtt’

‘a few houses burned down.’

3.2.4 Plurality

The regular noun plural suf

ﬁx is -ocˇcˇ: bet-ocˇcˇ ‘houses’, s

w-oc

ˇcˇ ‘people’. After nouns

ending in i or e, y may be inserted: g

re-yoc

ˇcˇ ‘farmers’ (or reﬂecting o of the sufﬁx,

re-woc

ˇcˇ), and w after u and o; b

’lo-wocˇcˇ ‘mules’. Sufﬁx o may elide the noun-

ﬁnal vowel: m

kin

ɑ-ocˇcˇ > m

kinoc

ˇcˇ ‘cars’, b

’lo-ocˇcˇ > b

’locˇcˇ ‘mules’. There are

some irregular plurals in -

ɑt and -ɑn, probably Ge‘ez or pseudo-Ge‘ez formations,

including k

’

ɑl-ɑt ‘words’ and k’i-ddus-ɑn ‘saints’. With plural quantiﬁers, the plural

suf

ﬁx may be absent: bi-zu s

‘many people’, hul

t li-

˚ˇ

‘two children’. Adjectives (see

below) may also be pluralised. Other suf

ﬁxes attach to the plural: bet-ocˇcˇ-u ‘the

houses

’, bet-ocˇcˇ-

ɑcˇcˇi-n ‘our houses’.

AMHARIC

599

3.2.5 Genitive

Possessive or genitive nouns and pronouns are pre

ﬁxed by y

-: y

-ssu bet

‘his house’,

-k

ɑ li-

˚ˇ

‘a town boy’, y

-bet k

’ulf ‘lock of a house/house lock’. This preﬁx is

absent following another pre

ﬁx: l

-ssu bet

‘for his house’. Familiar such relations may

be expressed by simple juxtaposition, as in t

ɑri bet ‘school house’. This preﬁx also

marks relative clauses (see below).

3.2.6 Deﬁnite object

ﬁnite objects of verbs (also indeﬁnites sometimes in older writing), are sufﬁxed by

-n: bet-u-n w

‘he liked the house’,

ɑbbɑt-e-n ɑyy

-hu

‘I told my father’. Deﬁnite

objects optionally and typically topicalised de

ﬁnite objects, which precede the sentence

subject, are marked as

‘resumptive’ verb-object pronouns, as in leb

ɑ-w-n polis-ocˇcˇu

ɑzzu-t ‘policemen caught the thief’ (-t ‘him’).

3.2.7 Topicaliser

Nouns raised as topics, including those contrasted with others, are suf

ﬁxed by m, as in

’w

ɑt yohɑnni-s-i-m d

-n

ˇnˇ ‘in the morning YOHANNIS called me’, and yoh

ɑnni-s-i-m

yi-m

’

ɑl ‘As for Yohannis, he will come’ or ‘Yohannis will come too’. In questions an

equivalent morpheme is -ss:

ɑnt

-ss?

‘What about you (Sg.m.)?’ (This sufﬁx is histori-

cally mm, but the length is now rarely heard. A cognate suf

ﬁx has become obligatory

on negative main verbs.)

3.2.8 Derived Nouns

There are a number of ways to derive nouns from verbs and other nouns. An instru-
ment or location is formed on the verb in

ﬁnitive by sufﬁxing -iy

ɑ: m

’r

g-iy

ɑ ‘broom’

’

‘he swept’), m

š-

ɑ (< m

s-iy

ɑ) ‘ﬁnish, conclusion’ (cˇ

‘he ﬁn-

ished

’). An agent of a verb is expressed by a special stem sufﬁxed by -i; verbs with

three or four root consonants have

ɑ after the next to last: n

ɑri ‘teller’ (root ngr),

ɑmi ‘translator’ (trg

m); a derivation with a two-consonant root is s

‘hearer’

(root sm

ɑ). Historical y or w appears in the agent of a two-consonant root whose basic

form has e < y or o < w: hiy

˚ˇ

(i)

‘goer’ (hed

‘he went’), k’

ɑmi ‘stander’ (k’om

‘he

stood

’). An agent based on a noun is formed on the noun sufﬁxed by -

ˇnˇ

ɑ: k’

ld-

ˇnˇ

‘joker’ (k’

‘joke’), f

ˇnˇ

ɑ ‘horseman’ (f

‘horse’). (This sufﬁx also forms

ordinal from cardinal numerals; see below.) Nationality is expressed by a place-name
and the suf

ﬁx -

ɑwi: ingliz-ɑwi ‘English(man)’; also in ɑm

ɑwi ‘annually’ (ɑm

‘year’).

An abstract noun of quality has the suf

ﬁx -nn

t: set-i-nn

‘womanhood’ (set ‘woman’),

di-h

ɑ-nn

‘poverty’ (di-h

ɑ ‘poor’).

3.3 Adjectives

There are words whose usual function is as attribute to nouns including in comparisons,
such as ti-lli-k

’ ‘big, important’ and

ɑroge ‘old (non-human)’: ti-lli-k’ s

‘big (important)

person

’,

ɑroge bet ‘old house’. These may be nouns in fact (and only incipiently

adjectives), understood as ti-lli-k

’ ‘a big one’,

ɑroge ‘an old one’; they take the deﬁnite

AMHARIC

600

article, de

ﬁnite object, and plural sufﬁxes: ti-lli-k’-u ‘the big one (m.)’, ti-lli-k’-ocˇcˇ ‘big

ones

’, k’on

˚ˇ

o-w

ɑ ‘the pretty one (f.)’, k’on

˚ˇ

o-woc

ˇcˇ ‘pretty ones’, k’on

˚ˇ

o-w

ɑ-n m

kin

’

‘he sold the pretty car (f.).’ As in the previous example, the deﬁnite sufﬁx attaches

to the adjective; but a possessive suf

ﬁx attaches to the noun: ti-lli-k’-u bet ‘the big house’

vs ti-lli-k

’ bet-u ‘his big house’. The plural sufﬁx attaches to the noun: k’on

˚ˇ

o m

kin-oc

ˇcˇ

‘pretty cars’ but optionally to the adjective: k’on

˚ˇ

-oc

ˇcˇ m

kin-oc

ˇcˇ. The quantiﬁer hullu

‘all’ may follow its noun: s

w hullu

‘all the people’.

Adjectives may duplicate their middle consonant, which is followed or not by

ɑ, to

form a plural of

‘variousness’, as in ti-li-lli-k’ li-

˚ˇ

ˇcˇ ‘various big children’ (ti-lli-k’ ‘big’),

˚ˇ

˚ˇ˚ˇ

i-m w

ɑdd

roc

ˇcˇ ‘various tall soldiers’ (r

˚ˇ˚ˇ

i-m

‘tall’). Like nouns these may be

pluralised: r

˚ˇ

˚ˇ˚ˇ

i-m-oc

ˇcˇ n

ɑcˇcˇ

‘They are tall (ones)’.

An adjective meaning

‘having particularly or excessively a quality of a noun’ is the

noun suf

ﬁxed by -

ɑm: hod-ɑm ‘greedy, gluttonous’ (hod ‘stomach’), m

lk-

ɑm

‘attractive, nice’ (m

‘appearance’). An adjective of similar but intensiﬁed meaning

has the suf

ﬁx -

ɑmmɑ: fi-rey-ɑmmɑ ‘fruitful’ (fi-re ‘fruit’), t’en-ɑmmɑ ‘healthy’ (t’enɑ

‘health’).

Comparison with an adjective is expressed by a prepositional phrase with k

- or t

‘from’ (t

- in northern dialects), as in k

-ssu i-ne di-h

ɑ n

ˇnˇ ‘I am poorer than he’ (lit.

‘from him I am poor’). Adjectives often have cognate verbs with which comparisons
may also be expressed: k

-ssu i-ne r

˚ˇ˚ˇ

i-m n

ˇnˇ or k

-ssu i-ne i-r

zzi-m

ɑll

‘I am taller

than he

’ (r

‘he grew tall’). Comparisons may be reinforced by a ﬁxed-form

(lacking subject agreement) simple non-past verb such as yi-li-k

’ (l

ɑk’

‘he/it surpassed’)

or yi-b

’ (b

’

‘he/it exceeded’), as in:

ɑylu k-ɑnt

yi-b

’ b

’

ɑm k’

ˇcˇ’i-n n

haylu from-you.Sg.m. more very thin is.he

‘Hailu is much thinner than you.’

A predicative superlative is a comparative in relation to hullu

‘all’: k

-hullu i-nn

ssu

di-h

ɑ nɑcˇcˇ

‘they are poorer than all’. Comparatives are discussed below in the section

on syntax.

3.4 Demonstratives

See the demonstratives in Table 35.4; these distinguish singular and plural and near
(proximal) and far (distal). Plural demonstratives consist of the plural pre

ﬁx i-nn

- plus

locatives i-zzih

‘here’ and i-zzy

ɑ ‘there’. The demonstratives may be attributive as in yi-h

bet

‘this house’ or pronominal as in y

ɑ n

‘that’s it’.

Table 35.4 Demonstratives

Singular

Near

yi-h

yi-(hi-)c

ˇcˇ(i)

Far

ɑcˇcˇ(i)

Plural

Near

i-nn

-zzih

Far

i-nn

-zzy

AMHARIC

601

3.5 Numerals

See cardinal numerals in Table 35.5. Ordinals are the cardinals suf

ﬁxed by -

ˇnˇ

ɑ (a sufﬁx

which also forms noun agents):

ɑnd-

ˇnˇ

ɑ ‘ﬁrst’, hɑyɑ hul

ˇnˇ

ɑ ‘twenty-second’. In royal

titles

‘ﬁrst’ is k’

ɑm-ɑwi (root k’

‘he preceded’) and ‘second’ d

ɑgm-ɑwi (d

‘he repeated’): k’

ɑmɑwi hɑyl

si-ll

ɑsi ‘Haile Sellasie I’, dɑgmɑwi mi-nili-k ‘Menelik II’.

Calendar years are expressed as in

ši z

’

ˇ m

to si-ls

ɑ sost (thousand nine hundred

sixty-three)

‘nineteen-sixty-three’.

3.6 Verbs

A verb is a stem plus (except in Sg.2m. imperative forms) a subject af

ﬁx, and perhaps

other af

ﬁxes.

3.6.1 Roots and Stems

Semitic verbs are traditionally thought of as consonantal or largely consonantal roots com-
pleted as stems by a pattern of vowels and sometimes additional consonants. Amharic stems
of representative verbs in the four main verb conjugations past, nonpast, imperative, and
conjunct, and the in

ﬁnitive, are exempliﬁed in Table 35.6, where hyphens show the place of

obligatory subject suf

ﬁxes (of the past and conjunct conjugations) or preﬁxes (nonpast).

The 12 verbs are representative of the 12 most common types, which differ by the

structure of their roots. Roots are minimal forms, thus material of the imperative column
less vowels

(supplied by verbal grammar) and (epenthetic) i-. Some roots, the B-types,

have long consonants shown as

‘:’ and exempliﬁed by the second verbs of the ﬁrst

three pairs in Table 35.6.

Consonant length of the historical next-to-last consonant is a characteristic of stems

in the past, and in the nonpast of verbs of the types of -b

ɑr:i-k, -m

k:i-r, and -f

ɑ.

The historical regularity was obscured by loss of the last or next-to-last consonant,
usually leaving a vowel as re

ﬂex. In the column of the past these are the types of k’om,

hed and s

ɑm which lost their next-to-last consonant, the types of b

ɑ, l

ɑ, and

ɑ which lost their last consonant, and the types of k’

and l

which lost a

ﬁnal consonant without leaving a vowel reﬂex. Verbs whose conjunct and inﬁnitive
stems are augmented by -t are those which lost the

ﬁnal consonant, for which the t

substitutes. In

ﬁnitive stems of Table 35.6 are shown with the inﬁnitive preﬁx m

Table 35.5 Cardinal Numbers

ɑnd

ɑsrɑ-hul

hul

ɑyɑ

sost

ɑsɑ

ɑrɑt

ɑrbɑ

ɑmmi-st

ɑmsɑ

si-ddi-st

si-ls

ɑt

si-mmi-nt

ɑnyɑ

’

ɑssi-r

100

ɑsr-ɑnd

1000

ši

AMHARIC

602

The 12 verb types have no meaning associations, but B-types tend to be transitive.

The type of b

ɑr:

k, with

ɑ after the ﬁrst consonant, is often termed ‘C-type’. The ﬁrst-

row triconsonantal type of k

l is the most numerous. In Shoan or Addis Ababa

Amharic, the conjunct stems of biconsonantal verbs with a back-round vowel characteristic
are k

’om for k’um of the table and hed for hid.

Stems with initial

ɑ: some stems have initial ɑ, the vowel reﬂex of a lost (pharyngeal or

laryngeal) stem-initial consonant. Table 35.7 shows exemplary

ɑ-initial verbs corresponding

to the types of rows 1

–4 and 11 of Table 35.6.

So-called

‘doubled verbs’ have a repeated consonant in the pattern C

. Table 35.8 shows exemplary stems of doubled verbs corresponding to the

types of rows 1, 2 and 11 of Table 35.6. The doubled verb characteristic is shown in the
table as repetition of a consonant, not to be confused with long consonants which
characterise stems and shown with

‘:’.

3.6.2 Four Basic Conjugations

The past, nonpast, imperative, and conjunct conjugations are exempli

ﬁed in Tables 35.9

and 35.10, by forms of the root ngr

‘tell’.

In the past, Sg.1 suf

ﬁx -ku and Sg.2.m. sufﬁx -k have forms with h (from historical

spirantisation of k) when the stem ends in a vowel (as so for

ﬁve verb types in Table

35.6), for example b

ɑ-hu ‘I ate’, k’

-h

‘you (Sg.2.m.) remained’. But Sg.1 -hu

may also appear after stem-

ﬁnal consonants: k

l-hu

‘I paid’, and in Amharic writing

-hu/-h may be written even when -ku/-k is read.

Table 35.7 Verb Stems with Initial

Type

Past

Nonpast

Imper.

Conjunct

ﬁnitive

Gloss

ɑl:

ɑlf

i-l

ɑlf-

ɑl

‘pass’

ɑd:

ɑd:i-n

ɑd:i-n-

ɑd:

‘hunt’

ɑy:

ɑy

i-y

ɑy-t-

ɑy

-t

‘see’

ɑm:ɑ

ɑmɑ

i-m

ɑm-t-

ɑmɑ-t

‘slander’

ɑn

k:i-s

ɑnki-s

ɑnki-s-

ɑnk

‘limp’

Table 35.6 Verb Stems of 12 Root Types

Type

Past

Nonpast

Imper.

Conjunct

ﬁnitive

Gloss

-k

ﬂ

ki-f

ﬂ-

-kf

‘pay’

-f

l:i-g

l:i-g-

-f

‘want’

’

-k

’

’i-r

’

r-t-

-k

’r

-t

‘remain’

-l

y:-i-t-

-l

-t

‘separate’

-b

bi-l

l-t-

-bl

ɑ-t

‘eat’

-l

k:-i-t-

-l

ɑ-t

‘measure’

’om-

-k

’om

’um

’um-

-k

’om

‘stand’

hed-

-hed

hid

hid-

-hed

‘go’

ɑm-

-si-m

ɑm

si-m-

-s

ɑm

‘kiss’

ɑr:

-b

ɑr:i-k

ɑrk

ɑrk-

-b

ɑr

‘bless’

-m

k:i-r

ski-r

ski-r-

-m

‘testify’

-f

nd-i-t-

-f

ɑ-t

‘burst’

AMHARIC

603

The vowel of Sg.1 -ku/-hu is voiceless when word-

ﬁnal, n

r-ku

, but is voiced if

an object suf

ﬁx follows: n

r-ku-t

‘I told him’. Pl.2 -

ɑcˇcˇi-hu reﬂects a plural sufﬁx

ɑcˇcˇ ‘plural’. Stem-ﬁnal vowels are absent with -u of Pl.3 (and equivalent polite forms),

as in b

ll-u

‘they ate’ (< b

ɑ-u); otherwise the usual vowel elisions apply: k’

’

‘he remained’, l

ɑ-

> l

ɑ ‘he measured’.

Verbs of stative and active meaning are interpreted differently in the past: stative

verbs may be understood as present: k

’

‘he remained ~ he remains’; s

‘he

was/got drunk ~ he is drunk

’; whereas actives are past.

Negative past has a pre

ﬁx

ɑl- and, as a main verb, a sufﬁx -m(m): k-ɑl-n

r-ku

‘if I

don

’t tell’ (minor verb with k- expressing ‘if’ and without -m),

ɑl-n

r-ni--m

‘we

didn

’t tell’ (main verb).

Table 35.8 Stems of ‘Doubled’ Verbs

Type

Past

Nonpast

Imper.

Conjunct

ﬁnitive

Gloss

-b

rr-

-br

‘ﬂy’

-d

l:i-l

l:i-l-

-d

‘cajole’

-d

g:i-g

ngi-g

g:i-g-

-d

‘decree’

Table 35.9 Past and Nonpast Conjugations

Past

Nonpast
minor verb

Nonpast
main verb

Sg.

r-ku

i--n

gr-

ɑll

r-k

ti--n

gr-

ɑll

ti--n

gr-i

ti--n

gr-i-

ɑll

pol.

(=Pl.3)

yi--n

gr-

ɑl

ˇcˇ

ti--n

gr-

ɑll

ˇcˇ

pol.

(=Pl.3)

Pl.

r-(i-)n

i-n(ni-)-n

gr-

ɑll

ɑcˇcˇi-hu

ti--n

gr-u

ti--n

gr-

ɑllɑcˇcˇi-hu

r-u

yi--n

gr-u

yi--n

gr-

ɑllu

Table 35.10 Jussive and Conjunct Conjugations

Jussive

Minor verb
conjunct

Main verb conjunct

Sg. 1

li--ng

gi-r-:e

gi-r-:e-

ɑll

ti--ng

gr-

ɑl

ti--ng

r-i

gr-

š-

ɑl

pol.

(=Pl.3)

yi--ng

gr-o

gr-o-(w)

ɑl

ti--ng

gr-

ɑll

ˇcˇ

pol.

(=Pl.3)

Pl.

i-n(ni-)-ng

gr-

ɑl

ti--ng

r-u

gr-

ɑcˇcˇi-hu

gr-

ɑcˇcˇi-hu-ɑl

yi--ng

r-u

gr-

ɑl

AMHARIC

604

An object suf

ﬁx pronoun follows the subject sufﬁx and precedes -m: n

ˇcˇ-i-h

‘she told you (Sg.m.)’,

ɑl-n

r-ku-t-i-m

‘I didn’t tell him’.

The nonpast conjugation has subject pre

ﬁxes plus the Sg.2.f. sufﬁx -i and Pl.3 (and

polite form) -u; see Table 35.9, again exempli

ﬁed by ‘tell’ (nonpast stem -n

gr).

Nonpast subject pre

ﬁx t- may be geminated when it follows an adverb-clause preﬁx

such as s-

‘when’ (with which there is epenthesis): s-t-n

gr-i > si-t(ti-)n

gri

‘when you

(Sg.f.) tell

’. Subject preﬁx y- after consonants is replaced by i: s-y-hed > sihed ‘when

he goes

’. Stem-ﬁnal alveolar consonants except r when followed by Sg.2f. sufﬁx -i are

replaced by alveopalatals as discussed in the above section on consonants.

Verbs of stative and active meaning are interpreted differently in the nonpast: active

verbs in the nonpast may be understood as present or future: yi--n

‘he tells ~ will

tell

’, whereas statives are only future: yi--s

‘he will be (get) drunk’ (or sometimes

habitual present meaning).

Negative nonpasts have a pre

ﬁx

ɑ- and, as main verbs, sufﬁx -m(m): ɑ-y-n

gr-i-m

‘he

won

’t tell’, b

ɑ-n(ni-)-n

‘if we don’t tell’. Negative nonpast Sg.1 preﬁx is l- instead of

i-- of the af

ﬁrmative:

ɑ-l-hed-i-m ‘I won’t go’. Subject preﬁx t- is usually lengthened

after the negative pre

ﬁx:

ɑ-tti--n

gi-r

‘she doesn’t tell’.

The nonpast af

ﬁrmative main verb (except when sufﬁxed by -nn

ɑ ‘and’ in compound

verbs) has auxiliary-verb suf

ﬁxes historically forms of the verb of presence (

ɑl- + suf-

ﬁxes, see below). The ﬁnal vowel of the Sg.1 auxiliary -

ɑll

hu is voiceless when word

ﬁnal, so this sounds like

ɑll

. The Pl.2/3 suf

ﬁx -u of the simple nonpast is absent upon

suf

ﬁxation of the plural auxiliary verb, unless Pl.3 (and polite-form) -u is followed by an

object suf

ﬁx, in which case the auxiliary verb is -

ɑl not -ɑllu: for example yi--n

gr-u-t-

ɑl

‘they tell him’.

As in the above example, an object pronoun precedes the suf

ﬁxed auxiliary: yi--n

gr-

ɑcˇcˇ

ɑl ‘he tells them/him.pol.’, i--n

gr-i-

š-

ɑll

‘I tell you.Sg.f.’.

The imperative(-jussive) conjugation is exempli

ﬁed in Table 35.10, again with ‘tell’

(jussive stem -ng

r). The jussive expresses a wish or polite command/request as in yi--mt

’

‘let him come’, yi--ng

r-i-h

‘may (it be so that) he tell you.Sg.m.’, with 1st and 3rd-

person jussives typically understood as

‘let V’, for example i-nni--hid ‘let us go’. The

jussive is the imperative stem plus pre

ﬁxes and sufﬁxes of the nonpast except that

instead of Sg.1 i-- the jussive has l- (as also in the negative nonpast).

The jussive is absent in minor clauses. Negative jussives like negative nonpasts are

pre

ﬁxed with

ɑ- and, as in the negative nonpast, 2nd-person negative jussives may have

lengthening of subject pre

ﬁx t-:

ɑ-t(ti-)-hid-u ‘don’t go! (Pl.2)’.

Imperatives are 2nd-person jussive stems, respectively ni-g

r, ni-g

r-i, ni-g

r-u (all

having i--epenthesis)

‘tell! (Sg.m., Sg.f., Sg.pol./Pl.)’. Stem-ﬁnal alveolar consonants of

Sg.2f. have the usual palatalisations as in wi-s

˚ˇ

(i)

‘take! (Sg.f.)’ vs wi-s

d, Sg.m. The

negative imperative is expressed by 2nd-person negative jussives pre

ﬁxed by nega-

tive

ɑ-, in which 2nd-person subject preﬁx t- is usually lengthened: ɑ-tti--ng

‘don’t

tell! (Sg.m.)

’.

The conjunct conjugation (sometimes termed

‘gerundive’ or ‘converb’) is exempli-

ﬁed in Table 35.10, as both minor and main verbs, again with forms of ‘tell’, stem n

gr.

The minor-verb conjunct expresses all but the last of a sequence of states or events, the
main verb being of any form, for example k

ﬂ-

n w

’

ɑn ‘they paid and left’ (‘having

paid, they left

’, with main verb in the past), k

ﬂ-

n i-nni-hed

ɑll

‘we will pay and go’

(

‘having paid, we will go’, main verb nonpast). Subjects of the conjunct and main verb

need not be the same: s

’-o

ɑss

r-u-t

‘he having robbed, they imprisoned him’.

AMHARIC

605

The conjunct is a stem and subject suf

ﬁxes. Conjunct stems are similar to but dif-

ferent from those of the nonpast (Table 35.6). A stem-

ﬁnal consonant is lengthened in

Sg.1 necessitating epenthesis before the long consonant, e.g. n

gi-r-:e-w w

’

ɑhu ‘I told

him and left

’, which if alveolar other than r has the usual palatalisations, for example

si-

˚ˇ

-:e

‘I taking’ (stem w

sd). Stem augment t is palatalised too: m

’i-cˇ-:e ‘I coming’

(stem m

’-t).

The conjunct lacks negative forms except in the Gojjam dialect, in which the negative

conjunct like the past is pre

ﬁxed by

ɑl- and sufﬁxed by -m.

The main-verb conjunct like the main-verb nonpast combines with an auxiliary verb

suf

ﬁx based on the verb of presence to express a past event with still-present effects,

like an English

‘present perfect’: n

gr-o-

ɑl ‘he has told’. As in the nonpast, an object

suf

ﬁx precedes the auxiliary verb: n

gr-o-n

ˇnˇ-

ɑl ‘he has told me’.

The in

ﬁnitive is a deverbal noun, a stem preﬁxed by m

- as in m

-ng

r gi-dd n

‘to

tell is a necessity

’, m

-hed yi-w

ɑl ‘he likes to go’. Where purpose is expressed, the

ﬁnitive is preﬁxed by l

-: l

-m

-hed yi-f

lli-g

ɑl ‘he wants to go’. In ɑ-initial stems,

- is elided: m-

ɑd

‘to spend the night’, m-

ɑy

‘to see’. A negative inﬁnitive is pre-

ﬁxed by

ɑl

-m

-ng

‘not to tell’. The inﬁnitive may take the possessive pronoun

suf

ﬁxes (Table 35.3) as subject: m

-ng

r-w

ɑ ‘her telling’, m

-hed-

ɑcˇcˇi-n ‘our going’.

3.6.3 Other Conjugations

Verbs with other aspectual and modal meanings are constructed of one of the above as
main verb plus an auxiliary verb. Some of these are: (1) a

‘past perfect’ for an event in

the past prior to another, which is a minor-verb conjunct with auxiliary verb n

r: i-ne

s-i--m

’

ɑ hed-o n

‘When I came, he had gone’, b

lt-

n n

‘we had eaten’;

(2) for possibility or probability a minor-verb conjunct with nonpast yi--hon-

ɑl (hon

‘become’): k’

’

ro-w-n r

si-c

ˇ-:e yi-hon

ɑl ‘I might have (must have) forgotten the

appointment

’ (r

ɑ ‘he forgot’); (3) for ‘imminence, an event about to happen’, a

minor verb nonpast pre

ﬁxed by l- with a form of ‘say’ preﬁxed by s- ‘when’: l-i-hed s-i-l

‘when he was about to go’ (i- of s-i the postconsonantal form of the Sg.3m. y-, and
-l the nonpast stem of

‘say’); (4) for obligation an inﬁnitive with the verb of pre-

sence (below) suf

ﬁxed by -bb- and an object sufﬁx: m

ɑt ɑll

-bb-i-n

ˇnˇ ‘I have to eat’,

hed y

-bb-i-

š-i-m ‘you (Sg.f.) don’t have to go’; (5) for habitual or conditional past

the simple nonpast with n

r: yi--n

gi-r n

‘he used to tell’/‘he would have told’; (6)

for progressive aspect i-yy

- pre

ﬁxed to the past plus the copula (for which see below) in

the nonpast and conjugated forms of n

r in the past: i-yy

-f

-w n

‘he is

looking for it

’, i-zziy

ɑ i-yy

-s

rr-

ɑcˇcˇ n

ˇcˇ ‘she was working there’.

3.6.4 The Copula

This is an irregular verb of being, with only the non-past forms seen in Table 35.11. The
copula is a stem n- conjugated with object suf

ﬁxes, except for alternative to Sg.3f. n-

ɑt, with

an object suf

ﬁx, n-

ˇcˇ with the subject-sufﬁx of the past. In fact n

ˇcˇ is more common.

The negative nonpast copula is negative pre

ﬁx

ɑy-, the stem d

(doll

in Gojjam

dialect), and suf

ﬁxes of the regular past (Table 35.11). In the past, the be-verb is regular

past forms of n

r-, for example n

r-ku

‘I was’, n

r-k

‘you (Sg.m.) were’, with

regular negatives,

ɑl-n

r-ku-m

‘I was not’, etc. In the future, the be-verb is regular

nonpast forms of -hon

‘be/become’, for example i--hon ‘I will be’, yi--hon ‘he will be’.

AMHARIC

606

3.6.5 Verb of Presence

There is an irregular verb for locative sentences and presentatives such as

‘there is a _ ’;

see Table 35.12. The stem is

ɑll

conjugated as a past although the meaning is present.

The negative nonpast verb of presence as a main verb has the stem y

with subject

suf

ﬁxes of the past plus -m, as in y

-hu-m

‘I am not present’. If there are locative

adverbs, the copula may replace the verb of presence: i-zzih n

w ~ i-zzih

ɑll

‘he/it is

here

’ (or ‘here he/it is’).

In the past the verb of presence and be-verb are nondistinct, for example n

r-ku

‘I was (present)’, n

r-k

‘you (Sg.m.) were (present)’. The verb of presence in the

future employs the stem nor (< *n

br): yi--nor-

ɑl ‘he/it will be’ (which stem in the past

means

‘reside, live’: i-zzy

ɑ nor-

ˇcˇ ‘she lived there’).

3.6.6 Possession

Possession is expressed by the verb of presence with object suf

ﬁxes as possessor and

the verb stem ordinarily agreeing in gender and number with the thing(s) possessed:
m

kin

ɑ ɑll

-n

ˇnˇ ‘I have a car’ (car is-to.me), i-hi-te bi-zu li-

˚ˇ

ˇcˇ

ɑllu-ɑt ‘My sister has many

children

’, i-hi-t

ɑll

ˇcˇ-i-w ‘he has a sister’. For possession in the past the stem is n

with the object suf

ﬁxes: b

’i g

b n

ɑt ‘she had enough money’. Amharic has

Table 35.11 Copula

ﬁrmative

Negative

Sg.

-n

ˇnˇ

ɑy-d

-hu-m

-h

ɑy-d

-h-i-m

ɑy-d

š-i-m

pol.

-wot

(=Pl.3)

-w

ɑy-d

-m

-c

ˇcˇ ~ n-

ɑt

ɑy-d

-c

ˇcˇ-i-m

pol.

(=Pl.3.)

(=Pl.3)

Pl.

-n

ɑy-d

-n-i-m

ɑcˇcˇi-hu

ɑy-d

ll-

ɑcˇcˇi-hu-m

ɑcˇcˇ

ɑy-d

ll-u-m

Table 35.12 Verb of Presence

ﬁrmative

Negative

Sg.

ɑll

-hu

-hu-m

ɑll

-h

-h-i-m

ɑll

š-i-m

pol.

(=Pl.3)

ɑll

-m

ɑll

-c

ˇcˇ

-c

ˇcˇ-i-m

pol.

(=Pl.3)

Pl.

ɑll

-n

-n-i-m

ɑll-ɑcˇcˇi-hu

ll-

ɑcˇcˇi-hu-m

ɑll-u

ll-u-m

AMHARIC

607

other such

‘impersonal’ verbs, which take as their object the subject of their usual

translation equivalent, including the verbs for being hungry and thirsty: r

ɑb

-n

ˇnˇ ‘I am

hungry

’ (it.hungers-me), t’

mm-

ɑcˇcˇ

‘they are thirsty’ (it.thirsts-them).

3.6.7 Derived Verbs

Fully productive are two causatives with pre

ﬁxes

ɑ- and ɑs- and a passive-reﬂexive

with pre

ﬁx t(

)-.

Causatives of intransitive verbs are typically formed with the pre

ﬁx

ɑ-, for example

ɑ-f

ɑ ‘he boiled (caused to boil)’ (f

ɑ ‘it boiled’); y-ɑ-w

’ ‘he makes fall’ (yi--w

’

‘he falls’). Some transitives whose meanings involve beneﬁt to the self including ‘eat’,

‘drink’ and ‘dress’ form causatives with

ɑ-: ɑ-b

ɑ ‘he caused to eat’, y-ɑ-l

‘he

causes (others) to dress

’. Both intransitive and transitive verbs having

ɑ-initial stems

form causatives with

ɑs-, such as ɑs-ɑmm

‘he causes to believe’. Imperative-jussive

and conjunct stems of

ɑ-causative stems of triconsonantal verbs differ from the basic

stem as in

ɑ-ski-r ‘cause to get drunk! (Sg.m.)’ (cf. basic stem si-k

r),

ɑ-ski-r-o ‘he,

causing to get drunk

’ (cf. basic s

kr-o). The imperative-jussive

ɑ-causative stem of

verbs of the s

ɑm

type (Table 35.6) also differs from the basic stem, as in

ɑ-si-m ‘cause

to kiss (Sg.m.)!

’ (basic s

ɑm ‘kiss (Sg.m.)!’).

Causatives, or factitives, of transitive verbs are formed with the pre

ﬁx

ɑs-, for

example

ɑs-g

‘he caused to kill’, y-

ɑs-f

lli-g

‘it is necessary’ (lit. ‘it causes to

want/seek

’). The

ɑs-causative of an intransitive is an ‘indirect’ causative perhaps with

two agents, for example

ɑs-m

’

ɑ ‘he caused someone to bring (something)’ (cf. m

’

‘he came’ with

ɑ-causative ɑ-m

’

ɑ ‘he brought (caused to come)’). Both objects of the

causative verb, if de

ﬁnite, are sufﬁxed by the deﬁnite object sufﬁx -n. As-causatives of

A-type (non-geminating) stems are formed as B-types, having a long consonant; for
example nonpast

ɑs-causative of A-type root sbr ‘break’ is y-ɑs-s

b:i-r, with long b. The

imperative-jussive

ɑs-causative stem of verbs of the sɑm

type (Table 35.6) also differ

from the basic stem, as in

ɑs-li-k-u ‘cause to send!’ (cf. basic lɑk ‘send!’).

Passive-re

ﬂexive verbs are formed with the preﬁx t(

)- and stem-changes, for exam-

ple t

-b

ɑ ‘it is eaten’. See passive-reﬂexive stems of the nonpast, imperative, and

ﬁnitive, some different from basic stems, in Table 35.13. Some of these derivatives

express a re

ﬂexive, for example t-

ɑtt’

‘he washed himself’ (

ɑtt’

‘he washed’), or

the intransitive of a transitive, for example t

-m

‘he returned (vi)’ (m

‘he

returned (vt)

’).

Passive-re

ﬂexive nonpast and conjunct stems of A-type (non-geminating) verbs are

formed as B-types, with a long consonant, for example, the nonpast t-passive of A-type
root kft

‘open’ is yi--k:

‘it is opened’, with long f of the B-type. In the nonpast the

stem-initial consonant is long as the result of assimilation of the passive pre

ﬁx t, thus

yi--k:

t < yi--tk

t. Re

ﬂexive-passive t- of a nonpast, jussive, or inﬁnitive of a verb

with initial

ɑ is lengthened, as in yi--tt-ɑmm

‘it is believed’, m

-tt-

ɑl

‘to be passed’.

A derived verb expressing reciprocity has the pre

ﬁx t(

)- and the vowel

ɑ after the

ﬁrst stem consonant: t

-n

ɑgg

‘they conversed (told to each other)’ (n

‘he

told

’), t

-m

ɑttu ‘they hit each other’ (m

ɑ ‘he hit’). This derivative may also express a

habitual, as in t

ɑll

‘he habitually ate’ (b

ɑ ‘he ate’). The causative of this derivative

is an adjutative (

‘help to V’) as in

ɑ-ffɑll

‘he helped to seek’ (f

‘he sought,

wanted

’),

ɑ-wwɑll

ˇcˇ ‘she helped to give birth (as midwife)’ (w

ˇcˇ ‘she gave

birth

’), the stem-initial long consonant resulting from assimilation of t-.

AMHARIC

608

Some verbs with

ɑ-initial basic stems take the compound preﬁx ɑs-t- to form a causative

of the passive:

ɑs-t-ɑww

’

‘he notiﬁed, announced’ (

ɑww

’

‘he knew’),

ɑs-t-ɑrr

’

‘he reconciled’ (t-

ɑrr

’u ‘they were reconciled’).

A derived verb expressing repetition and attenuated action has reduplication of the

historical next-to-last consonant preceded by stem-vowel

ɑ, for example sɑsɑm

‘he

kissed repeatedly/a little

’ (s

ɑm

‘he kissed’), n

ɑkkɑ ‘he repeatedly/barely touched’

ɑ ‘he touched’).

There are so-called

‘defective verbs’, which lack basic stems and occur only as a

derivational type, for example, in the absence of verbs d

or k

’

there are

ɑ-d

‘he did’, t

-d

‘it was done’,

ɑs-k’

’

‘he put, placed’, and

-k

’

‘he was seated (seated himself)’. A non-productive preﬁx n- appears in a

number of defective verbs, especially quadriconsonantal and reduplicatives, always
with one of the pre

ﬁxes

ɑ- or t-, for example t

-n-b

‘he knelt’,

ɑ-n-s’

ɑrr

’

‘it glittered’.

3.6.8 Denominal Verbs

Verbs may be derived from nouns, though not freely, by abstracting the consonants of
the noun and assigning the resulting consonantal root to a verb type, often B-type, for
example from m

‘poison (n.)’ yi--m

rri-z

‘he poisons’ (with long r), and from cˇ’

ɑmmɑ

‘shoes’ t

-c

ɑmmɑ ‘put on shoes’.

3.6.9 ‘Say-verbs’

A peculiarity of Ethiopian languages and especially Amharic is verbs consisting of an
often seemingly ideophonic word with a

ﬁnal long consonant and a conjugated form of

the verb

‘say’ (with forms

ɑl

‘he said’ yi--l ‘he says’, b

‘say!’, bi-l-o ‘he saying’, m-

ɑl

-t

‘to say’), for example bi-kk’

ɑl

‘he appeared’, k’ucˇcˇ’

ɑl

‘he sat down’, and zi-mm

ɑl

‘he was quiet’. Transitive verbs employ ‘do’ instead of ‘say’: bi-kk’

ɑd

‘he caused to

appear

’, li-bb

ɑdi-rg ‘look out!’ Two somewhat productive derivations of ‘say’ compound

verbs are an attenuative exempli

ﬁed by w

’

ɑl

‘he fell a little’, and an intensive

exempli

ﬁed by wi-di-kk’

ɑl

‘he fell hard’, both derived from the root wdk’ ‘fall’.

Table 35.13 Reﬂexive-passive Stems of Verbs of the 12 Types

Nonpast

Imperative

ﬁnitive

Gloss

-k:

-k

-k:

‘be opened’

-f:

-f

-f:

‘be sought’

-f:

˚ˇ:

-f

˚ˇ

-f:

˚ˇ

-t

‘be consumed

-l:

-l

-l:

-t

‘be separated’

-b:

-b

-b:

ɑ-t

‘be eaten’

-l:

-l

-l:

ɑ-t

‘be measured’

-s:

ɑm

-s

ɑm

-s:

ɑm

‘be kissed’

š:om

šom

š:om

‘be appointed’

-g:et

’

-get

’

-g:et

’

‘be adorned’

-b:

ɑr:

-b

ɑr

-b:

ɑr

‘be blessed’

-m:

-m

-m:

‘be recorded’

-z:

-z

-z:

ɑ-t

‘be stretched’

AMHARIC

609

4 Syntax

4.1 Basic Word Order

The verb is

ﬁnal in its clause with rare exception (cleft sentences, below), for example:

ɑri-w t’i-yyɑk’e t’

’

student-the question asked.he

‘the student asked a question’

Typically, the subject is

ﬁrst in its clause (SOV), as above, but when the verb object is

ﬁnite and topicalised (or backgrounded) this usually precedes the subject, in which

case the verb has a

‘resumptive’ object pronoun sufﬁx, for example:

yi-h-i-n w

r yoh

ɑnni-s s

ɑ-w

this-Obj chair Yohannes made.he-it

‘Yohannes made this chair’

A clause-initial instrumental prepositional phrase is similarly resumptively expressed as
a suf

ﬁx on the verb.

-m

’r

giy

ɑ-w seti-yye-wɑ bet-u-n t’

ˇcˇ-i-bb-

with-broom-the woman-the house-the-Obj swept-she-with-it

‘the woman swept the house with a broom’

Interrogative pronouns are not fronted but are preverbal: yoh

ɑnni-s mi-n n

‘What

(mi-n) did Yohannis say?

’, li-

˚ˇ

ˇcˇu l

mi-n y

ɑl

’s

ɑllu ‘Why (l

mi-n) do the children cry?

’

4.2 Yes

–No Questions

These may have rising intonation or less often sentence-

ﬁnal question words i-nde

‘really?’, w

y, or the literary archaic verb suf

ﬁx -ni-; for example

ɑster ti-hedɑl

ˇcˇ w

ɑster

ti-hed

ɑl

ˇcˇ i-nde,

ɑster ti-hedɑl

ˇcˇ-i-ni- ‘Will Aster go?’ A one-word ‘reprise’ question has

the clause-

ﬁnal sufﬁx -ss:

ti-hed

ɑlli-h (w

–

ɑwon. ɑncˇi-ss

‘Will you (Sg.2m.) go? – Yes. And you (Sg.2f.)?’

4.3 Noun Phrases

The head noun is typically

ﬁnal in its phrase: t’i-ru m

‘a good answer’, y-

ɑbbɑte ɑddis

kin

ɑ ‘My father’s new car’. In a few idioms borrowed from or modelled on Ge‘ez,

this order is reversed and

is suf

ﬁxed to the head noun: bet

’

ɑhi-ft ‘library’ (lit.

‘house-of books’), bet

ngi-st

‘palace’ (lit. ‘house-of government’).

4.4 Prepositions

Frequent prepositions include b

‘at, on’, i-- ‘at, in’, l

‘for’, k

‘from’ (t

- in northern

dialects), si-l

‘about’, i-nd

‘like’ (the latter two may be written as separate words),

AMHARIC

610

and w

‘to, towards’ (always a separate word). Some positional relations are expres-

sed with postpositional words historically nouns, including l

ɑy ‘top’, wi-st’ ‘interior’, ﬁt

‘face’ and h

ɑlɑ ‘back’, for example ɑlgɑ lɑy ‘on the bed’, hod wi-st’ ‘in the belly’.

Sometimes postpositions co-occur with prepositions, for example (b

-)bet wi-st

’ ‘in the

house

’, k

-ssu b

ﬁt ‘in front of him’, k

-ne b

-h

ɑlɑ ‘after/behind me’.

4.5 Coordination

Nouns are coordinated with -nn

ɑ sufﬁxed to the next-to-last: bɑl-i-nnɑ mist ‘husband and

wife

’, s

w-i-nn

ɑ set ‘man and woman’. Verbs may be coordinated with -nnɑ if the verb

suf

ﬁxed by -nn

ɑ is a past, minor-verb nonpast or imperative: t

ssu-nn

ɑ w

’u ‘they got

up and left

’, yi-m

’

ɑ-nnɑ yɑyɑl ‘he will come and see’, hid-i-nnɑ i-y ‘go (Sg.m.) and see!’

Alternatives are coordinated with w

y suf

ﬁxed by -m(m) in statements (-m(m) the

historical contrastive-topicalising suf

ﬁx) and -ss in questions (-ss the contrast-question

suf

ﬁx): i-zzih w

y-m i-zzy

ɑ ‘here or there’, i-zzih w

y-ss i-zzy

ɑ ‘here or there?’ Alternatives

may be simply juxtaposed: m

hon

ɑl

-m

hon

‘to be or not to be’. Coordinated clauses

are usually expressed by use of conjunct verbs, which need no conjunction, for exam-
ple b

lto t

’

ɑ ‘he ate and drank’, t’wɑt w

’i-cˇcˇe m

ɑtɑ d

sku

‘I left in the morning

and arrived in the evening

’. Contrast clauses are coordinated with gi-n, n

r gi-n, or

(somewhat literary) d

ɑru gi-n ‘but’: m

’

ɑhu gi-n ɑlb

ɑhum ‘I came but I didn’t eat’.

4.6 Adjective (Relative) Clauses

These precede the noun they modify, and y

- (identical to the possessive pre

ﬁx of

nouns) is pre

ﬁxed to the verb in the past and y

-mm- in the nonpast. In Gojjam dialect

the pre

ﬁx for nonpast verbs may be simply m- and in Menz and Wello dialects i-mm-,

the latter also seen in old Amharic literature.

-sid

ɑmo y

-t

ˇnˇ

ɑwlt

in-Sidamo Rel-was.found.it statue

‘a statue which was found in Sidamo’

si-l

-tege t

’

ɑytu y

mm-i-n

gi-r t

ɑrik

about-Empress Taitu Rel-it-tell history

‘history which tells about Empress Taitu’

If the head noun of an adjective clause is object of a preposition

‘on/at’ (b

-) or

‘for’

-), this appears as a pronoun suf

ﬁxed to -bb- or -ll-, respectively, within the verb:

yi-h y

-t

-w

d-ku-bb-

t bet n

this Rel-Pas-born-I-in-it house is

‘this is the house I was born in’

If the clause is object of a preposition, the verb of the clause may be pre

ﬁxed by the

preposition in which case the relative verb pre

ﬁx y

- is absent: si-l

-t

’

ɑytu b

-mm-i-n

gi-r

’i-h

ɑf ‘in a book which tells about Taitu’. In the dialect of Gojjam and in old

Amharic literature, the plural verb of an adjective clause may take the noun-plural
suf

ﬁx -ocˇcˇ, for example y

-m

’-ocˇcˇ s

w-oc

ˇcˇ ‘people who came’.

AMHARIC

611

For cleft sentences, also constructed with relative verbs, see below.

4.7 Noun Clauses

These may be formed on the verb in the nonpast, where the noun-clause and main-clause
subjects are the same, with verb-pre

ﬁx l-:

l-i-w

sd-

ɑcˇcˇ

ɑ-l-f

g-i-m

that-I.take-them Neg-I-want-Neg

‘I don’t want to take them’

The same meaning may be expressed with an in

ﬁnitive verb as follows:

i-nn

ssu-n l

-m

-ws

ɑ-l-f

lli-g-i-m

them-Obj for-Inf-take Neg-I-want-Neg

‘I don’t want to take them’

A noun clause expressing purpose, whose subject may be different from the main-clause
subject, employs the pre

ﬁx i-nd-:

i-ndi--n-m

’

ɑ yi-f

lli-g-

ɑllu

that-we-come want-Aux.they

‘they want us to come’

A headless adjective clause functions as a noun clause (alternatively: these noun clauses
may function as adjective clauses), for example:

-t

-g

ˇnˇ

-w sid

ɑmo wi-st’ n

-w

Rel-Pas-found.it-the Sidamo in is-it

‘what was (~where it was) found is in Sidamo’

mm-i-n

gr-i-

š wi-š

t n

-w

Rel-he-tell-you.Sg.f. false is-it

‘what he tells you (Sg.f.) is false’

Noun clauses functioning as objects of the verb are suf

ﬁxed, on the verb of the clause,

by the de

ﬁnite object sufﬁx -n:

-s

’

ɑf-k-

w-n

ɑn

b-ku-t

Rel-wrote-you.Sg.m.-it-the read-I-it

‘I read what you wrote’

So-called

‘cleft’ sentences expressing presuppositions and employing the nominalised

relative clause are frequent in spoken and written Amharic. The following sentence
presupposes

‘someone ordered it’.

ɑzz

z-u-t i-ss

ɑcˇcˇ

w n-

ɑcˇcˇ

Rel-ordered-he.pol-it he.pol is-he.pol

‘it is he (pol.) who ordered it’

AMHARIC

612

ɑzz

z-u-t m

ɑn n-ɑcˇcˇ

Rel-ordered-he.pol-it who is-he.pol

‘who is it who ordered it?’

The latter clefted question may be as frequent as the simple question m

ɑn ɑzz

zut

‘Who

ordered it?

’. The above sentence

-t

-g

ˇnˇ

-w sid

ɑmo wi-st’ n

-w

Rel-Pas-found.it-the Sidamo in is-it

‘what was (~where it was) found is in Sidamo’

may be heard as equivalent to the simpler

‘it was found in Sidamo’.

In such sentences an exception to verb-

ﬁnal order may occur, with the copular verb

in medial position followed by the noun clause:

i-ss

ɑcˇcˇ

w n

ɑcˇcˇ

w y-

ɑzz

z-u-t

he.pol is.he.pol Rel-ordered-he.pol-it

‘it is he who ordered it’ (‘he’s the one who ordered it’)

(That is, instead of verb-

ﬁnal y-

ɑzz

z-u-t i-ss

ɑcˇcˇ

w n

ɑcˇcˇ

w.) Such word order may be

favoured for having the advantage for discourse of focusing, by moving forward (to the
right), the presupposition.

4.8 Adverb Clauses

These have a complementising

–subordinating preﬁx on the past or nonpast verb,

having meanings like

‘when’, ‘if’, ‘because’, etc. A common time clause is expressed

with the pre

ﬁx s- ‘when’ (t- in northern dialects other than Gondar) and a common

conditional clause with the pre

ﬁx b- ‘if’, both with the nonpast verb, as follows:

ɑri-w t’i-yyɑk’e s-i-t’

yyi-k

’

ɑst

ɑri-w ɑ-y-m

lli-s-i-m

student-the question when-he-ask teacher-the Neg-he-answer-Neg

‘when the student asks a question, the teacher doesn’t answer’

b-i-z

nb-i-m

ɑ-n-hed-m

if-it-rain-Top Neg-we-go-Neg

‘even if it rains we won’t go’

‘To be about to do’ is expressed as direct speech in a time clause with s- and the verb

‘say’, for example i-w

’

ɑlli-hu s-i-l ‘when he was about to go out’ (lit. ‘when he said

“I will go out”’).

Some adverbial clauses are expressed by prepositional pre

ﬁxes plus the past form of

the verb, and with both a preposition and a postposition, for example, with k

‘if’,

i-yy

‘while’, k

…

˚ˇ

mmi-ro

‘since’ (

˚ˇ

mmi-r-o a usually

ﬁxed Sg.3m. conjunct ‘he

beginning

’), b

… gize ‘when’, k

… b

ɑlɑ ‘after’ (b

-h

ɑlɑ lit. ‘at back’), k

…

ﬁt ‘after’ (b

ﬁt lit. ‘at front’). An example of the latter is:

AMHARIC

613

-z

ﬁt bet g

ɑ-n

from-rained.it before house entered-we

‘before it rained, we entered the house’

Three adverb clauses are expressed by prepositional pre

ﬁxes which occur only with the

past form of verbs or with the nonpast pre

ﬁxed by mm- (the relative nonpast preﬁx less

-); these are i-nd

‘like, as’, si-l

‘because’ and i-sk

‘until’, as in i-ssu i-nd-

ɑl

‘like he

wrote

’ (with elision of

of i-nd

-), i-ssu si-l

-mm-i-s

’i-f ‘because he writes’, i-sk

-mm-i-d

‘until he arrives’; i-sk- also constructs with the unpreﬁxed nonpast: i-sk-i-m

’

ɑ ‘until he

comes

’.

Comparative clauses may employ relative and causative conjunct forms of the verbs

‘be less’ and ‘be more’, for example relative verb y-

ɑnn

‘which is less’ and conjugated

causative conjunct

ɑ-b

’- ‘causing to be more’.

-n

ˇnˇ

ɑ y-ɑnn

i-nn

ssu s

rr-u

from-we Rel-is.less.it they did-they

‘they did less than us’

-n

ˇnˇ

ɑ i-sswɑ ɑ-b

’-

ɑ tɑt’

ɑll

ˇcˇ

from-us she Caus-be.more-she she.studies

‘she studies more than us’

5 Writing

Amharic writing is a descendant of the ancient Ethiopic (Ge

‘ez) writing system known

from about 2500

, and well attested in epigraphic records of the Aksumite Ethiopian

kingdom. Like other ancient Semitic writing systems this is descendant of an adaptation
of Egyptian hieroglyphic consonantal writing. Ethiopic was at

ﬁrst a consonantal writ-

ing system; vowels were not represented. In time Ethiopic underwent popular adapta-
tion as graphs became less regular and angular, and eventually a practice of writing on
parchment-paper arose. Perhaps as an in

ﬂuence of Greek writing, which was also

known in Aksum and employed in inscriptions and coins of the kingdom, about 1600

Ethiopic began to be written from left-to-right, opposite that of most other Semitic

writing systems, and, about the same time, vowels began to be represented, as additions
or other modi

ﬁcation of the consonantal graphs.

For example, the graph for b

በ, descendant of the Egyptian hieroglyph of ‘house’ the

ﬁrst phone of which word is b in Semitic (Amharic bet, Arabic b

ɑyt), was modiﬁed as

ቡ for bu, ቢ for bi, ቤ for be, etc. The original basic consonantal graph became the
representation of the consonant plus the most frequent vowel, so

በ is b

(originally b

ɑ,

but

ɑ later became

Upon the decline of Aksum after about 600

, Ethiopic writing disappeared in

archaeology, to reappear around 1300

in manuscripts of Ethiopian Orthodox

Christian religious literature and chronicles of kings. Shortly after this time a mod-
i

ﬁed form of Ethiopic began to be used for writing Amharic. This required new graphs

for the Amharic palatalised coronals

š, ž, cˇ, cˇ’ and nˇ, and a graph for spirantised k,

or x, which weakened further as h. The Amharic writing system and its graphs are
termed

ﬁdel.

AMHARIC

614

Subsequently, Ethiopic was adapted to write Tigrinya (of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia),

and recently Amharic writing has been adapted to write other Ethiopian languages
including some which have different consonants and long vowels. Amharic writing
today ful

ﬁls all the needs of modern literate society. The problems of Amharic typewriting

including the large number of graphs and inappropriately small size of typescript have
been alleviated or corrected with the use of computer mediated writing.

Table 35.14 presents the 31 Amharic consonants of Table 35.1. Because of mergers

of formerly distinct sounds whose different graphs persist in the writing system, four
consonants have more than one graph: s and s

’ and

each have two, and h has four.

Table 35.14 Amharic Graphs in English Alphabetical Order

(i-)

አ*

ኡ

ኢ

ኣ

ኤ

እ

ኦ

ዐ*

ዑ

ዒ

ዓ

ዔ

ዕ

ዖ

በ

ቡ

ቢ

ባ

ቤ

ብ

ቦ

ቸ

ቹ

ቺ

ቻ

ቼ

ች

ቾ

ˇ’

ጨ

ጩ

ጪ

ጫ

ጬ

ጭ

ጮ

ደ

ዱ

ዲ

ዳ

ዴ

ድ

ዶ

ፈ

ፉ

ፊ

ፋ

ፌ

ፍ

ፎ

ገ

ጉ

ጊ

ጋ

ጌ

ግ

ጎ

ጐ

ጒ

ጓ

ጔ

ጕ

ሀ*

ሁ

ሂ

ሃ

ሄ

ህ

ሆ

ሐ*

ሑ

ሒ

ሓ

ሔ

ሕ

ሖ

ኸ

ኹ

ኺ

ኻ

ኼ

ኽ

ኾ

ኀ*

ኁ

ኂ

ኃ

ኄ

ኅ

ኆ

ኈ

኉

ኊ

ኋ

ኌ

ኍ

˚ˇ

ጀ

ጁ

ጂ

ጃ

ጄ

ጅ

ጆ

ከ

ኩ

ኪ

ካ

ኬ

ክ

ኮ

ዀ

ዂ

ዃ

ዄ

ዅ

’

ቀ

ቁ

ቂ

ቃ

ቄ

ቅ

ቆ

’

ቈ

ቊ

ቋ

ቌ

ቍ

ለ

ሉ

ሊ

ላ

ሌ

ል

ሎ

መ

ሙ

ሚ

ማ

ሜ

ም

ሞ

ነ

ኑ

ኒ

ና

ኔ

ን

ኖ

ኘ

ኙ

ኚ

ኛ

ኜ

ኝ

ኞ

ፐ

ፑ

ፒ

ፓ

ፔ

ፕ

ፖ

’

ጰ

ጱ

ጲ

ጳ

ጴ

ጵ

ጶ

ረ

ሩ

ሪ

ራ

ሬ

ር

ሮ

ሰ

ሱ

ሲ

ሳ

ሴ

ስ

ሶ

ሠ

ሡ

ሢ

ሣ

ሤ

ሥ

ሦ

’

ጸ

ጹ

ጺ

ጻ

ጼ

ጽ

ጾ

ፀ

ፁ

ፂ

ፃ

ፄ

ፅ

ፆ

ሸ

ሹ

ሺ

ሻ

ሼ

ሽ

ሾ

ተ

ቱ

ቲ

ታ

ቴ

ት

ቶ

ጠ

ጡ

ጢ

ጣ

ጤ

ጥ

ጦ

ወ

ዉ

ዊ

ዋ

ዌ

ው

ዎ

የ

ዩ

ዪ

ያ

ዬ

ይ

ዮ

ዘ

ዙ

ዚ

ዛ

ዜ

ዝ

ዞ

ዠ

ዡ

ዢ

ዣ

ዤ

ዥ

ዦ

Note: * 1st-order vowel is

not

AMHARIC

615

Each of the resulting 37 graphs has seven shapes, one for each of the seven vowels of
Table 35.2 (termed

‘1st-order’, ‘2nd-order’, etc.), except for the labiovelars which have

only

ﬁve. Because the pharyngeal and laryngeal consonants (which merged as h or

)

lowered a following vowel

ɑ, the basic graphs of these have ɑ where other consonants

have

(marked with asterisks in Table 35.14).

The 37 graphs (

ﬁdel) are read as simple syllables consisting of the consonant and a

vowel, except for 6th-order graphs. Vowels are extensions and/or modi

ﬁcations of the

1st-order consonant graph, in four largely regular patterns seen in Table 35.15, which
shows the consonants t, b, t

’ and m representative of 1-legged, 2-legged, 3-legged and

legless graphs, respectively.

The parentheses around i- of the 6th-form graphs

– t(i-), b(i-), t’(i-) and m(i-) – show that

these may be read with the vowel (the epenthetic vowel, with exceptions) or without it.
Thus

ልብ ‘heart’ with two 6th-order graphs is li-bb.

Although a graph is usually read as a syllable, Ethiopic is not a syllabic writing system (as

is Japanese kana for example), because the vowels, although attached, are systematically
recognisable apart from the consonants, just as in a so-called alphabetic system like
English.

Similarities of graphs of Greek and Ethiopic writing (and Amharic, derived from

Ethiopic) are owed to shared descent from Egyptian, for example Greek

Β and Ethiopic

በ, C and ገ, K and ለ, and R and ሠ. Direct inﬂuence of Greek is seen in comparison of
the Ethiopic-Amharic and Greek numbers, in Table 35.16. Similarities of Greek and
Ethiopic are particularly apparent for 2, 3, 9, 10, 80 and 100.

In two ways Ethiopic-Amharic writing fails to express the phonological contrasts of

Amharic. Long and short consonants, which are contrastive between vowels and at the
end of words, are written the same. Thus

ɑl

‘he said’ and

ɑll

‘he is present’ are both

written

አለ; and bb of ልብ li-bb ‘heart’ and b of ጀብ

˚ˇ

i-b

‘hyena’ are both written ብ. The

second failing has fewer but occasional manifestations: within a word before another
consonant a 6th-order graph may be ambiguous between the consonant with and
without i-: thus moti-

š ‘your (Sg.f.) death’ and motš ‘you (Sg.f) died’ are both ሞትሸ.

Table 35.15 Four Patterns of Vowel Modiﬁcation

1 leg

ተ

ቱ

ቲ

ታ

ቴ

ት

ቶ

t(i-)

2 legs

በ

ቡ

ቢ

ባ

ቤ

ብ

ቦ

b(i-)

3 legs

ጠ

ጡ

ጢ

ጣ

ጤ

ጥ

ጦ

ťu

ťi

ťe

ť(i-)

ťo

no legs

መ

ሙ

ሚ

ማ

ሜ

ም

ሞ

m(i-)

Table 35.16 Ethiopic Numbers Compared to Greek

፩

፪

፫

፬

፭

፮

፯

፰

፱

፲

100

፲

፳

፴

፵

፶

፷

፸

፹

፺

፻

n¨

AMHARIC

616

Bibliography

The most thorough grammar of Amharic is Leslau (1995), although Dawkins (1969) is very ef

ﬁcient

for getting the basics. The most thorough Amharic

–English dictionary is Kane (1990), and the most

thorough English

–Amharic dictionary Leslau (1973). For learners a good bilingual dictionary is

Leslau (1975). The most thorough textbook remains Leslau (1967), although Appleyard (1995) pro-
vides the best introduction for learners. Advanced students of Amharic language and society will

ﬁnd

valuable the readings in Leslau and Kane (2001). An informative study of Amharic usage in Ethiopian
schools and society is Meyer and Richter (2003).

References

Appleyard, D. 1995. Colloquial Amharic (Routledge, London)
Dawkins, C.H. 1969. The Fundamentals of Amharic (Sudan Interior Mission, Addis Ababa)
Kane, T. L. 1990. Amharic

–English Dictionary, 2 vols (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden)

Leslau, W. 1967. Amharic Textbook (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden)
—— 1973. English–Amharic Context Dictionary (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden)

—— 1975. Concise Amharic Dictionary (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden)

—— 1995. Reference Grammar of Amharic (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden)
Leslau, W., and Kane, T. 2001. Amharic Cultural Reader (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden)
Meyer, R. and Richter, R. 2003. Language Use in Ethiopia from a Network Perspective. Schriften zur

Afrikanistic Band 7 (Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main)

AMHARIC

617

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