Talk:Geʽez script

Transliteration
I don't know if there is a standard transliteration. I realize that ሰ is Amharic [s], that's not the point. ሰ is descended from Proto-Semitic ś, and I believe it is transliterated as ś for this reason, but I have to check the literature; the exact pronunciation of 4th century Ge'ez is unknown anyway. If you don't want to transcribe ሠ as s, at least use š to avoid confusion with ś

regarding the listing of Phoenician letters, I would suggest only those theorized to be descended from the same Proto-Sinaitic glyphs. These are only a third or so of the 22 listed. dab (ᛏ) 11:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * There are rough similarities to most of the Phoenician letters, I think we should list them all, just to not leave any out. Which ones do you feel are specifically descended from which different P-S glyphs? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

the ones I had listed; see the variants discussed at Proto-Sinaitic; ideally, we would also present the hieroglyphs. Glyphs that are certainly unrelated include h, ḥ. ḫ, see -- we should not just list them without comment together with the related ones. I am not sure about alif and mem. ṭ 	and ṣ are also certainly unrelated. dab (ᛏ) 15:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * If you haven't already seen it, see the related chart I put at the bottom of am:ቅድመ-ሴማዊ ጽሕፈት. --ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:42, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I hadn't; very nice; could you upload your Proto-Sinaitic glyphs ([[Image:Proto-semiticA-01.png]] etc.) to commons? dab (ᛏ) 16:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I got them from commons, so it should appear above now if I just remove the : from before Image, let me try it... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:31, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Nice; however, the title is misleading. There is no such thing as "Proto-Semitic" glyphs. I believe these images are reconscructions of a Proto-Canaanite alphabet (but by whom), and are thus not intended to represent predecessors of the South Arabian script. We should use the images on Proto-Canaanite, and be very clear about the images we use here. 130.60.142.65 11:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I may be wrong. I believe the images originate with de:Protosemitisches Alphabet, and compare . But I do think these articles are confusing Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite (but the confusion may be mine, also), and in any case they cite no literature, so they are really worthless for deciding the case. 130.60.142.65 12:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ge'ez Date
http://hometown.aol.com/_ht_a/atobrukh/archaeology/matara/archevid1.html#archevid1pic4

See this page and click on Hawulti inscription (date fromm 5-6th century BC and is definitely Ge'ez). I don't have time to give more links right now, but I'll add some more later.

Yom 14:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The inscription obviously looks very different from modern Ge'ez and it looks similar to the South Arabian alphabet. Now, with my sketchy knowledge of the latter I cannot read it, so that's one for Ge'ez. However, it would be important to ask if vocalisations are an integral feature of the Ge'ez writing system. As it is classed as an abugida, the vocalisations are important. However, the script in question is clearly an abjad. --Gareth Hughes 15:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It's not quite South Arabian, note the first letter Hawt of the word "Hawulti" is upside-down from S. Arabian, as in Geez, and the other letter forms are also closer to Geez... At a minimum, it is intermediary between the two (being an abjad) but the letter shapes are already the Geez ones... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ge'ez and South Arabian script look very similar, but they are not the same. The text I linked too is certainly Ge'ez and not South Arabian. The only difference is the Ge'ez is unvocalized (the inscriptions in Ge'ez up to the 4th century are unvocalized as well, but no one says that they are not Ge'ez and are instead South Arabian or an intermediate form). (Let's not forget the possibility of the vocalization occuring earlier and an archaic style being used as well, too - though this is almost certainly not such an example) All letters there are almost identical to the modern forms; the only thing that gives me pause in reading it are the vertical | lines used as spacers instead of the modern : two dots in the shape of a colon. Every other letter varies fom modern letters much less than even the most precise of handwritting (other than the very precise writing of the priests).


 * Yom 17:37, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I noticed that by turning some of the letters upside down you get a good glimpse of South Arabian. The language of the inscription is obviously Ge'ez, rather than South Arabian. However, it is useful to distinguish between which language the text is in, and which writing system is used. The writing system is clearly not classical Ge'ez, chiefly because it is an abjad rather than an abugida. I would suggest that the writing system used in this inscription and classical Ge'ez are as closely related as the Phoenician abjad and the Greek alphabetic script. The latter is clearly derived from the former, but there has been a Sea Change. In Ethiopia, vocalisations create the abugida; in Greece, vowel letters create a fully alphabetic system. Do you think I'm storing too much importance in the lack of vocalisations? --Gareth Hughes 18:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe the writing system can indeed be said to be Ge'ez. As I said earlier, there are unvocalized texts prior to the 4th century that are still called Ge'ez (though the rulers may have been purposely using an out-of-date alphabet, according to Roger Schneider, who is quoted in the Ge'z Abugida article), the only difference being the vocalization. The vocalization is certainly important, but really the vocalization is not that different from the addition of vowel marks or diacritics. Certainly today the letters are learned as wholes (and not by the original letters + various vocalization rules), but in general a few vocalization rules for the changing of basic letters exist, unlike abugidas like Japanese, where ka and ki don't look at all like each other. Unless we separate the vocalized Ge'ez of the 4th century from the unvocalized Ge'ez of the 3rd Century~, though, the 5-6th century Ge'ez Script should still be called Ge'ez, even if it's an abjad and not an abugida. Perhaps the Template should have Ge'ez Abjad and then a Ge'ez Abugida subset under it? I feel that that might be too specific for an alphabetic transition that's not as important as those included in the current template, though.


 * ~(Old and New/Classical Ge'ez? Or perhaps Old would denote a script separate from Proto-Sinaitic but not quite 500 BCE Ge'ez yet, Middle would be unvocalized Ge'ez whose forms are identical to modern bases, and Classical or New would be vocalized? - none of this is for Wikizens to decide, though).
 * Yom 20:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Here is the Hawulti Inscription as well as the modern Ge'ez letters (the first form with the -eh (a with umlauts) vowel ending, not the actual vowel forms in the words).
 * [[Image:Ge'ezinscription.jpeg]]


 * ዘሐወለተ|ዘአገበረ
 * አገዘ|ለአመወሀ|ወሰ
 * ሐበ|መሐዘተ|አወዐ
 * አለፈነ|ወጸበለነ


 * As you can see the letters are almost identical. The only real change is that the more modern letters are a bit more rounded than the generally sharper older letters. This only came about in the 17th century (http://www.abyssiniacybergateway.net/fidel/HISTORY.txt), so essentially, aside from the vocalization and later addition of new sounds, the alphabet has not changed very much. The original letters, in fact, have barely changed at all. Its only the addition of new letters (through vocalization and new consonants due to Agaw substratum) that has changed the alphabet. The script is most certainly Ge'ez also because it's easily distinguishable from SA. First of all, the "h" in the second line, 2nd word, last letter (first h in the halehame or HLHM order) in the script is definitely Ge'ez as it lacks a straight line under it. Secondly, the "f" in the 4th line, first word, 3rd letter, is without a doubt Ge'ez as the SA version is simply a diamond shape. Thirdly, the "t" e.g. first line, first word, last letter) cannot be SA because in SA it is more like an X than a cross. The "h." (e.g. first line, first word, second letter), which is the second H in HLHM order, is upside down in SA as well, which is not the case in this inscription. "m" (second line, second word, 3rd letter) is also sidewise in SA, but not here, and "s." or "d." or "ts" (fourth line, second word, second letter) has 3 legs and a small head in SA, whereas here it has a medium or large head and only 2 legs like in Ge'ez. The "R" in the table below is also very different from the "R" used above, as is the "Z" (although less visibly so). This site shows some slightly different SA letters (closer to what I have seen), where the "R" and "Z" are much closer to Ge'ez (though in the "Z" case, it apparently is "dj" in SA?)


 * - align="center"
 * || h || l || ḥ || m || ś || r || s || ḳ || b || t || ḫ || n || ʾ || k || w || ʿ || z || y || g || d || ṭ || ṣ || ḍ || f
 * - align="center"
 * Ge'ez || ሀ || ለ || ሐ || መ || ሠ || ረ || ሰ || ቀ || በ || ተ || ኀ || ነ || አ || ከ || ወ || ዐ || ዘ || የ || ገ || ደ || ጠ || ጸ || ፀ || ፈ
 * - align="center"
 * South Arabian
 * [[Image:himjar_ha.PNG|14px|h]]
 * [[Image:himjar_lam.PNG|14px|l]]
 * [[Image:himjar_ha2.PNG|14px|ḥ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_mim.PNG|14px|m]]
 * [[Image:himjar_shin.PNG|14px|š]]
 * [[Image:himjar_ra.PNG|14px|r]]
 * [[Image:himjar_sin.PNG|14px|ś]]
 * [[Image:himjar_qaf.PNG|14px|ḳ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_ta2.PNG|14px|t]]
 * [[Image:himjar_kha.PNG|14px|ḫ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_nun.PNG|14px|n]]
 * [[Image:himjar_alif.PNG|14px|ʾ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_kaf.PNG|14px|k]]
 * [[Image:himjar_wa.PNG|14px|w]]
 * [[Image:himjar_ajin.PNG|14px|ʿ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_dhal.PNG|14px|z]]
 * [[Image:himjar_ ja.PNG|14px|y]]
 * [[Image:himjar_djim.PNG|14px|g]]
 * [[Image:himjar_dal.PNG|14px|d]]
 * [[Image:himjar_ta1.PNG|14px|ṭ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_sad.PNG|14px|ṣ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_za2.PNG|14px|ḍ]]
 * [[Image:himjar_fa.PNG|14px|f]]
 * - align="center"
 * }
 * }


 * No SA "B" is shown here, but it is the same as in Ge'ez (just boxier like in pre-17th century Ge'ez).


 * Yom 21:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * would it be wise to move this debate to Talk:Ge'ez alphabet at this point? dab (ᛏ) 21:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It would. I'll do that now. If anyone has any objections of what I've posted make it at the Ge'ez Alphabet debate.Yom 22:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Is the date actually BC or AD seems to be conflicting 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:BD03:9AF7:C379:AC68 (talk) 00:24, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Chapter 51 of Daniels & Bright, which gives a date of early first millennium CE for the Geez abjad, is eight pages long. There are also mentions of Geez scattered throughout the book.

Though they don't go into detail, they seem to be basing the Sabean/Geez distinction on the presence of specifically Geez letters: /p, p', kw, gw, kw', xw/. (They suggest /p/ may come from Greek.)

As for vocalization, "the appearance of vowel signs in the epigraphic record coincides with the advent of Christianity in Ethiopia, about 350 C.E." —kwami 18:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a very bizarre basis for the distinction. "p" and "p'" I can understand, but kw, gw, k'w, and xw come much later in Ge'ez development. They're not part of the original 26 consonants that where multiplied by 7 vowels to become an abugida in c. 350 CE (wrt to p, the letter seems to be a variation of "t," though I can see how it might be related to pi). The differences in h (no tail), h. (upside down), m (sideways), and others, such as less easily recognized differences like "ayin" being a small circle in SA, whereas it is a larger, less circular shape in Ge'ez, seem like more than enough differences to show their difference. Obviously you can always argue that the Ge'ez script must include p and p' to count as Ge'ez, but then you're just arguing about labeling. I can show you an example of a contemporary SA inscription found in Ethiopia if you wish to see the difference more further. http://hometown.aol.com/_ht_a/atobrukh/archaeology/matara/archevid5.html#archevid5pic2


 * These are all from around the 5th century BCE, but the script is clearly not the same, though it is similar.Yom 19:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, "the appearance of vowel signs in the epigraphic record coincides with the advent of Christianity in Ethiopia, about 350 C.E." -- is this a direct quote from the Daniels and Bright book? If so, it seems like awfully presumptive scholarship.  There was certainly a Christian community in Ethiopia long before this (some say going back to the government official baptised by St. Philip in Acts); presumably by "advent" they meant the date Ethiopia became "officially" Christian, with the baptism of Emperor Ezana, but that was certainly well before 350, probably closer to 325.  --ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, the one is a direct quote. I think it was an approximation rather than a specific year, but may refer to vocalization specifically rather than the baptismal date. (Presumably, if liturgy were the motivation for the vocalization, there might be a few years' delay between the two.)


 * I may have misread the labialized consonant comment. They also mention the palatals in the same paragraph, but there they're clearly talking about a later development. So perhaps they are just going on the appearance of /p, p'/, reasoning that a Geez script would be able to write Geez phonemes. As you say, that's a matter of definition. A direct quote:


 * The Sabean/Minean script (or one related to it) which Ethiopic adopted was able to represent all consonants except for [p] and [p-dot]. The symbols for these became T and &, respectively. [Obviously I'm substituting ASCII here.] T seems to be a modification fo the Greek Π, while & is a derivative from the Ethiopic s-dot. [It then goes on to describe the labiovelars and palatals.]


 * D&B is of uneven quality. It's a compilation of authors. Some of the articles/chapters are good, others such as Japanese are disappointing. The Ethiopic chapter is by Getatchew Haile, but I'm not qualified to evaluate its quality. kwami 19:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know how reliable Getatchew Haile is either, but he doesn't seem to be very accurate. Regarding definition, any definition that includes the MeTera (Matara) inscription as an example of SA would also include any unvocalized Ge'ez script (i.e. the abjad is SA, the abugida is Ge'ez) as an example of SA, which seems to be the claim that D&B make. At the same time, however, they say that the existence of p and p. distinguish the two scripts. Presumably, p and p. didn't just spring into existence w/ the adoption of Christianity, which means a pre-vocalization Ge'ez would have the two letters p and p., distinguishing it from SA according to D&B, yet it would be prior to vocalization, which would categorize it as SA. Since this is obviously a contradiction, the existence of unvocalized Ge'ez script with the letters p or p. (which I'm willing to bet money on) would disprove their classification. Either way, any definition is a bit arbitrary, but the classification of the above script as Ge'ez seems to be the one that makes the most sense, since it is so much closer to modern Ge'ez where parallels exist (i.e. ignoring vocalization and letters added to represent new sounds form Agaw substratum), especially if you ignore the rounding of letters in the 1600s.Yom 22:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a contradiction, or at least that's not how I read it. I interpret D&B as follows:


 * 1) SA and Greek were in use in Ethiopia.
 * 2) Later SA was adapted to Geez (early 1st millennium), taking /p/ from Greek.
 * 3) Still later Geez was vocalized, c. 350 CE.

That is, the Geez script is defined as SA customized to the Geez language, whether or not it's vocalized, but not just as an Ethiopian graphic variant of SA. The question then would be whether MeTera had /p, p'/. If it did not, then perhaps D&B knew of it, but considered it a local variant of SA that was the ancestor of Geez. However, if it did have /p, p'/, then we do have a contradiction. kwami 02:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't say anything to the contrary. I said that I'm willing to be that there was /p, p'/, and that if there was, then there is a contradiction. If you interpretation of D&B is correct, though, then the question is whether the differences between unvocalized Ge'ez script (ignoring /p, p'/ for a moment) and SA script are significant enough to call the former a different script and not just a variant. Let me enumerate the differences again (I'll use the modern Ge'ez letters, so just imagine the letters as a little more angular, a + means they are the same). SA transliteration from here, a proposition to include it in Unicode.


 * Ge'ez transliteration/SA transliteration/Ge'ez letter/SA letter/differences/
 * h/h/ ሀ / [[Image:himjar_ha.PNG|14px|h]] / No tail in Ge'ez
 * l/l/ ለ / [[Image:himjar_lam.PNG|14px|l]] / longer tail in Ge'ez
 * ḥ/h./ ሐ / [[Image:himjar_ha2.PNG|14px|ḥ]] / upside down
 * m/m/ መ / [[Image:himjar_mim.PNG|14px|m]] / sideways
 * ś/ś/ ሠ / [[Image:himjar_shin.PNG|14px|š]] / sideways
 * r/r/ ረ / [[Image:himjar_ra.PNG|14px|r]] (there's another version which is similar to a crescent) / curve more at the bottom (compared to both the crescent and this version)
 * s/r ሰ / [[Image:himjar_sin.PNG|14px|ś]] /+ (ignoring recent rounding in 17th c.)
 * ḳ/k./ ቀ / [[Image:himjar_qaf.PNG|14px|ḳ]] / line continues through the circle
 * b/b/ በ / [[Image:himjar_ba.PNG|14px|b]] (this is one example of SA b, there's another exactly the same as in Ge'ez)/ +, straight line on top (same in other versions, different in this one)
 * t/t/ ተ / [[Image:himjar_ta2.PNG|14px|t]] / slight rotation and change in angles, x vs. a cross
 * ḫ/h(/ ኀ / [[Image:himjar_kha.PNG|14px|ḫ]] / change in U at top and stem changed
 * n/n/ ነ / [[Image:himjar_nun.PNG|14px|n]] /+
 * ʾ/ʾ/ አ / [[Image:himjar_alif.PNG|14px|ʾ]] /+
 * k/k/ ከ / [[Image:himjar_kaf.PNG|14px|k]] /+
 * w/w/ ወ / [[Image:himjar_wa.PNG|14px|w]] /+ (some small differences between old style Ge'ez & SA, but modern Ge'ez is very close).
 * ʿ/ʿ/ ዐ / [[Image:himjar_ajin.PNG|14px|ʿ]] / Larger in Ge'ez, and more triangular (base at top) in pre-rounding Ge'ez
 * z/dj/ ዘ / [[Image:himjar_dhal.PNG|14px|z]] / (I have also seen a version with only one line in the center) only one line in the center, different sound, also +
 * y/y/ የ / [[Image:himjar_ ja.PNG|14px|y]] / bigger circle at top in Ge'ez, maybe an angle difference, but that might not exist in pre-rounding Ge'ez
 * g/g/ ገ / [[Image:himjar_djim.PNG|14px|g]] /+
 * d/d/ ደ / [[Image:himjar_dal.PNG|14px|d]] / sideways, rounder head, and tails for the line on which the head rests (though the final is probably a more recent change, and the second one might be)
 * ṭ/th/ ጠ / [[Image:himjar_ta1.PNG|14px|ṭ]] / no bottom line, more spread out width-wise (as apposed to the leaner SA), different sound (from unicode prop. - emphatic or like "this" or like "the")?
 * ṣ/s. ጸ / [[Image:himjar_sad.PNG|14px|ṣ]] / larger and more triangular (esp. prior to rounding) circle or head, 2 legs instead of one
 * ḍ(modern value s.)/d./ ፀ / [[Image:himjar_za2.PNG|14px|ḍ]] / sound difference? (either "s." or "d." in old Ge'ez, but I don't know), + in shape ignoring rounding
 * f/f/ ፈ / [[Image:himjar_fa.PNG|14px|f]] / triangular center (prior to rounding) as opposed to diamond, and a top line and a line to the right.


 * Out of 24 letters, we can say for sure that 6 are exactly the same. Of the other 18, 2 have alternate forms identical to the Ge'ez ones, and of those, one of them has a different sound. Furthermore, there's one letter whose shape is the same, but which may have had a different sound under Ge'ez. Since we really don't know, I'll include this with the six.


 * So out of 24 letters, we can say for sure that 17 are different in some way. Even taking away the 2 with identical alternate forms, more than half (15 of 24) have been changed. Now, if we look at the difference between the Latin and Greek alphabet (even where cognates do not exist, which makes them seem less similar than they really are, since in such a situation, the letter would automatically be a "change"), we see that (ignoring lower case, which came later late in the 1st millenium E) there are 10 of 24 Greek letters with identical Latin counterparts. Ignoring Sigma's final form,which is essentially an S, (the difference being no greater than that of waw in Ge'ez and SA, making it similar to the /z/ and /b/ situation above), the similarities above mean that 14 letters were changed between Latin and Greek, yet Latin script is always considered a separate script, and not just a slight variation. If this unvocalized Ge'ez (and this is assuming that it does not have /p, p'/ yet) is simply a variation of SA script, then the Latin alphabet, too, is just a variation of the Greek alphabet. Since no one actually proposes the latter, it's evident that Ge'ez is a different script.


 * Yom 05:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Where is the evidence that Greek was used prior to Ge’ez. The archaeology only shows evidence of the Hellenistic period in AD. To state that Greek was used and SA is a deliberate attempt to make it seem as if Ge’ez came about way later 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:4550:EFE1:F5BB:5170 (talk) 22:36, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

No, you said D&B was "obviously a contradiction", when there is no obvious contradiction.

Also, the difference between Latin & Greek is not just one of letter shape, but of use. Latin dropped some Greek letters, and added others. D&B's point is that Geez similarly added letters to SA, and that's what made it distinct, not differences in the details of the shapes. Approaching it from the opposite direction, look at all the variants of the Latin alphabet. Many local forms, such as Irish, have almost no letters that are identical in shape to Roman, yet they're considered graphic variants of the same alphabet. I think D&B might be making the same point with SA and Geez: whether or not letters have shorter tails or bigger loops isn't the deciding factor, but whether the script has been fundamentally altered to fit a new language. Not saying this is the right way to look at it, only trying to present the argument fairly. kwami 08:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I said it's obviously a contradition if there is an example of unvocalized Ge'ez with /p, p'/, but let's not quibble. Ge'ez script did indeed drop (if Ge'ez script is in fact a direct descendent of SA and doesn't just share a common ancestor) many letters from SA. If you go to the link here proposing the Unicode form of SA, you'll see that there are 5 letters in SA not in Ge'ez (using the author's transliteration, /SH, J, Z, TJ, ZZ/, where Z is different from DJ that looks like H, interestingly the link has TS like in Ge'ez, but this is the only place I have seen that, so it may be because he takes the Ge'ez texts as SA?). The difference between Ge'ez and SA isn't just a couple dots here and there, though; there are rotations and changes in shape (bigger loops seem to be a common thing between all Ge'ez and SA, though, so it makes the differentiation easier, plus the ayin size difference is pretty significant, not to mention the more triangular shape of the Ge'ez letter). Regarding fundamental alteration, since Ge'ez and Sabaean are both Semitic languages, a complete overhaul wouldn't be necessary to fit Ge'ez.

Yom 08:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Which brings us back to my first question: had the BCE inscriptions dropped those letters, and added the p's? If so, then we do have a contradiction in D&B, and I wonder how they could have missed it. However, if not, there is no contradiction, and maybe we should consider the point where those changes took place (true accommodation to Geez) to be the origin of the Geez script. After all, within SA there are the kinds of differences you're ascribing to SA vs. Geez. kwami 09:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

ቐ, ኸ, ዸ, and ጘ
I'm not certain of the relationships of ቐ, ኸ, ዸ, and ጘ with ቀ, ከ, ደ, and ገ, but maybe I can help a little? ኸ is indeed a variant of ከ, occuring sometimes in Tigrinya when the root has ከ, but the specific form changes it to a ኸ. It also appears sometimes when you would expect ከ, like the ending -kum becomes -xum (semitic direct object for you pl.), spelled with ኸ. It is pronounced x, like H in Hannukah (also transliterated as Ch, or Kh for mainly arabic words). The same is the case with ቐ and ቀ. ቐ sounds very weird indeed, sort of like a mix of "ayin" and a ሐ (ħ - see Heth (letter)). I couldn't tell you whether or not these are "uvular approximants," though. ዸ and ጘ are a mystery to me, though. I've never seen them in my life, but they do seem to be variants of ደ and ገ.

Yom 19:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Yom that ጘ is a mystery. Is it actually used in any language, or just something that a font designer created? As for ዸ, when Oromo was written with the syllabary, I believe I saw this form occasionally used for the implosive d. Pete unseth (talk) 17:54, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Constructive questions
I'm afraid a lot of the information in this article is rather opaque for those of us who are not already experts. (I've just created a history section from most of the info in the introduction - on previous attempts I hadn't even read past the first dense paragraph.) I'd be glad if someone could help with any of the following: Thanks! Gailtb 19:59, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Basic signs only shows 24 of the symbols in Ge'ez, although it lists 26 in transliteration.
 * The "IPA" line is not IPA, but the transliteration system. An extra line with the IPA for those of us who are not familiar with this transliteration system would be really helpful.
 * Might be nice to split this whole basic signs section - just leave info about Ge'ez in this section, ie a 3-row table with transliteration, IPA and Ge'ez sign, and move the historical stuff to the history section. (Again, a bit overwhelming for someone like me who just wants to see what sounds the symbols refer to.)
 * The vowels in the transliteration system also need some explanation - ä is clearly not "IPA".
 * The whole look of the page is awful on my 800x600 screen with Firefox - boxes overlapping tables making much of it unreadable.


 * An anonymous editor changed the shape and boxing, which, using some Ge'ez fonts, looks really nice, but on others (like the one I'm using right now), looks horrendous. We need to find a way that works on most Ge'ez fonts (esp. ZF Unicode, since that's the most used), but is still larger than the normal sized text, which is barely legible. I don't know which transliterations are IPA and which are not, but I can find out which would be the correct IPA transliterations. The original 24 Ge'ez signs are hlHmsrs*qbtxn'kw`zydgT.S.D.f (in order), with P. and p assumed adoptions from greek(?).


 * Yom 20:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I re-wrote the signs section from my understanding of an abugida, but without knowledge of Ge'ez, so please correct any mistakes, eg are there consonant clusters which require the no-vowel variant as well as syllable-final consonants? Gailtb 07:43, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there a standard order for d and g? They are different in the table of basic signs from the one of the full alphabet. Gailtb 07:44, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * D always comes before G. The full alphabet is the correct one. I don't know what you mean by your first question (there's no "basic" sign anymore, as the "basic" one inherently has a -ä ending where it used to be a consonant; the consonant is the sixth (sadis) order, but is modified from the "basic" sign and could not be a consonant, but could instead have the vowel ə).


 * Yom 15:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's try a different way. If there is a word "let" for example, then (if I have understood correctly), it would be written as ሌት, ie "le" + "t". Is that right? In this case the t is at the end of a syllable. If there are words which have more than one consonant together, eg "lets" has 2 consonants at the end, and "step" has 2 at the beginning, then I think each word would have 2 consonants of the sixth order (t and s for lets, s and p for step). Firstly, have I understood correctly? And secondly, do such words actually occur in the languages which use Ge'ez script? If they do, then my explanation in the article is not fully comprehensive. Gailtb 21:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You are correct, the sixth order can stand for either a very short vowel or the absence of any vowel (consonant only). Although "lets" might not be the best example to demonstrate with because ts is considered to be one sound and can be written ለጽ, step can be written   ስተፕ   (I made that bigger because those particular letters are hard to distinguish at regular size font) yes there are words with clusters of two consonants together, but there is a general rule that a cluster cannot contain more than two consonant sounds, so when you have two letters in the 6th order together followed by another consonant, the short vowel must be inserted somewhere.  This even extends to "elision" across words, so for example አንድ ቀን is made up of two words አንድ /and/ and ቀን /qen/ but together in a sentence they are pronounced /and@ qen/ (where I am using @ for a vowel even shorter than a schwa)... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As Codex said, the sixth order is either for ə or just a consonant, regardless of its position (i.e. it could be either one, whether it's at the end of a word, the beginning or the middle). Reffering to Codex's example of and qen. "and" is actually pronounced without a @ (short schwa) when by itself. It's only in a phrase like that where there's the @. E.g. "And@ gizé" (one moment [time]) has the short @, but "and" by itself does not, and "andand@ gizé" (or andand@gizé - spelled variously as a-n-d-a-n-d(-)gi-zé or a-n-da-n-d(-)gi-zé), meaning "sometimes," does not have the @ at the end of the first "and."


 * In all forms it can have either ə or consonantal meaning. E.g., in word initial, it can be either ə or a consonant, like "səm" (name) or "krar" (Ethiopian lyre). In word middle (what's the correct term for this?) - ləbs [clothes] (all "sadis" or sixth order, spelled lə-bə-sə) without the vowel, but "asər" (first "a" is actually a guttural "ayin") has the ə preserved. In word final, the "r" in asər is "rə," but no "ə" (schwa) exists. A word where the ə-final vowel is always pronounced doesn't come to mind right now, but I'm sure they exist...I'll put one up when I think of it.


 * As I showed with "ləbs" ("bərd" - cold) and "krar" (and also "and"), such words do exist naturally in the languages that (classically, I don't know about Oromigna or any of the others that used to for a short time) use the Ge'ez script.


 * Codex, by "lets," he's referring to the english word, whicih would be ሌትስ or ለትስ in Amharic (since the è or ɛ sound doesn't exist), not "le[ts]" or "les." (period part of the "s." as one phenome).


 * Yom 21:41, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I know, but still it's funny how "ts" and "ny" sounds in foreign languages are always transliterated with two letters, when they would not truly be distinguishable in pronunciation if they were written with just one! What I mean is, honestly, it's impossible to hear much difference between someone saying ለጽ or ለትስ, and the name of the country south of Ethiopia is always written as ኬንያ, but it would not sound different if it were written as ኬኛ...! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:59, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Eh...I think they're distinct. If you say it fast, then it's harder to tell, but it's obvious with clear enunciation. The "ts" and "ny" transliterations are more a matter of necessity (not enough letters in English), as well as relatively good indicators for pronounciation, anyway. It doesn't mean that they're indistinguishable, though. I wonder, though, if proto-semitic "dan" (judge - e.g. Dani'el) became "dañ" directly, or through "dany" first... It doesn't matter, though. This issue is pretty irrelevant.
 * Yom 22:10, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

the table
don't be a pest about the comparative table, CS, or we will have to drop all comparison with Canaanite glyphs. You do not seem to object to the glyphs I marked as cognate, but you seem to think that others are cognate as well. It is then your responsibility to provide sources. Do either that, or remove the whole Canaanite comparison, including the obvious cases. Just listing cognate and undelated glyphs lumped together will not do. Sources concerning the comparison of SA and Canaanite alphabets are over at Middle Bronze Age alphabets, but I haven't looked at them in depth yet. dab (ᛏ) 17:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why we have to drop any of the comparisons. It's an open question as to which ones are related. Obviously we disagree about which ones are. But it's not our job to do research here and determine for ourselves which are related. I think listing all of them is fair. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

We do not disagree, I have no opinion. We disagree in our approach here. When I started work on this article, it was a naked unicode table. I would prefer constructive collaboration over mindless revert warring. Sometimes you have to work with assuming good faith to bridge gaps in citations, which will work out to a coherent whole in the end. If you want to butcher the article to a mere skeleton of attributed factlets, that's sad, but I won'd object. There is no point in listing Phoenician glyphs unless we claim they are related. We could as well list runes or Hangul glyphs otherwise. My approach would have been to begin with listing obvious cognates, and then hunt for professional opinions concerning the dubious ones. dab (ᛏ) 17:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

They are all "cognates" IMO
Here are all the letters you removed:

,

These are probably "cognates" because they both are thought to be descended from the same hieroglyph,

,

It may not be as obvious, but both are thought to descend from the same hieroglyph,

,

Again, not as obvious, until you see that both are traced to the ancestor

- (the comparable Sabaean glyph looks like a primitive Pi, not like an M except in a very rare variant...)

Both forms clearly come from

,

Both are though to have the same ancestor,

,

Certainly cognates, both having a common ancestor, and

,

Not apparent, until you see the common ancestor, (I would also venture to say this is from the hieroglyph   but I'll admit I don't have an actual source for that one...)

,

I admit this one is a little iffy source-wise, because the corresponding glyph isn't attested in Proto-Sinaitic and may not have been used at that stage, but I would submit that they could easily be related through the hieroglyph

,

At least one of these is thought to come from, and could well be that both do.

,

Both are thought to have the same hieroglyph ancestor,.

Additionally, the names for many of the actual letters themselves are clearly cognate in both North and SOuth Semitic.

ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:00, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

we should discuss all this on the South Arabian alphabet article. And who's doing the OR now? :) Peace, though, as I said, I am open to including more cognates, but there should be some qualification as to which identifications are certain, and which less so. dab (ᛏ) 21:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Labialized sounds
The article on Ge'ez language has other symbols as well as the ones given here as "basic", notably the labialized ones. From this article I had assumed that the basic symbols listed were the ones used in Ge'ez, and that the labialized ones were innovations for Amharic and Tigrinya. Could anyone explain why they don't come in the basic list? Gailtb 00:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I take it you mean the labiovelars (Aka the "bastard" letters kw, gw, and qw). They are pretty old. They definitely predate Tigrinya and Amharic, but I'm not sure when they came about. According to some definitions, the point at which a script no longer becomes SA (and is instead Ge'ez) is when it is vocalized, has /p/, /p./, /kw/, /qw/, and /gw/, though this isn't necessarily the most prominent definition (it also is based on the assumption that Ge'ez derives from SA rather than sharing a common ancestor; unvocalized Ge'ez also exists, even through the 6th century, though purposely archaic). Either way, I don't think anyone knows when exactly they came about, but they are present in the Ge'ez version of the Bible, which, if you assume that they have been copied exactly through the years, would date to the 4th or 5th centuries AD (i.e. after conversion, or after the arrival of the 9 Saints). I would say that they are not basic, however, as they are modifications based on a basic letter (i.e. k, q, g - like /dj/ based on d, j based on z, and /gn/ based on n). Though, in most other letters, they exist sometimes as bastard letters as an eigth form, that can only take the ending -a. I.e. the 8th form of m would be /mwa/ (and of n, /nwa/). The /kw/, /gw/, and /qw/ ones are different in that they have 4 forms: -wa, -wu, -wé, -wo. The name for the 8th form in Amharic is ዲቃላ (diqala), which means bastard.


 * Hope that helps.


 * Yom 02:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What about ḳh (ቐ) and ḳhw (ቘ)? Are they just used in Tigrinya? Gailtb 09:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. Yom 09:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I got a bit confused when trying to write about Amharic and Tigrinya. Please could you check what I've done. In some cases I don't know what the transliteration symbol should be. Gailtb 15:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

List order and punctuation
I suppose that the list order reads across the rows of the syllable chart: hä, hu, hi ... lä, lu ... rather than down: hä, lä ... pä, hu, lu ... Is that correct? And please could someone write a section on punctuation? Gailtb 20:50, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The punctuation is very confused. It is often used incorrectly, even in ancient texts. Here is a site that describes the issue in detail. http://www.geez.org/Entities/ - scroll down to Punctuation.
 * Yom 02:03, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Numbers Dont work
I tried droping in some numbers like ፭፻ and it looks like squares. It works here but not in the main system, but when you select the objects you see the numbers, is this a flaw with Wikipedia? I found the solution if you put a western charecter inbetween the numbers and the ge'ez.(፭፻-ዓመታት በጓላ) like that. --Halaqah 23:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Origins
Why does this article push off Ge'ez as being descended from Arabian script, yet the Kingdom of Axum article pushes it off as being indigenous? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.23.215.101 (talk • contribs) 02:37, May 9, 2007 (UTC)


 * Neither articles do the things you said as you've portrayed them. The Ge'ez script is definitely descended from the Epigraphic South Arabian alphabet (you can debate that alphabet's origins, however, as little is known about its early period), which was used by Ethiopians and South Arabians from the 9th century B.C. Epigraphic South Arabian is an Arabian script, but not "Arabian script" in the sense of Arabic. The Kingdom of Aksum article says that the Ge'ez language is indigenous, which it is. It stated that Aksum modified the alphabet from South Arabian to create Ge'ez; I've edited to correct it, as Ge'ez evolved from South Arabian, and was not modified, although it was later modified to add vowels around the 3rd-4th century. &mdash; ዮም  |  (Yom)  |  Talk  • contribs • Ethiopia 03:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I will probably irritate those who like to keep things pure and local, but Daniels has made a very strong case for influence on the script from India. The consonants have come from Arabia, but the idea of making a syllabary, an abugida, did not come from Arabia but from India. It is not coincidence that the change from using the consonantal script to adding vowel marks began about the time that Frumentius arrived, with his knowledge of things Indian. Also, ALL other abugida scripts are directly traceable to India. This in no way makes the script less authentically Ethiopia, so I ask that those who object to this examine the evidence and not merely delete my insertion. Pete unseth —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pete unseth (talk • contribs) 15:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It should be alright to mention that this is Daniels' theory, hopefully with a reliable reference. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There is absolutely no evidence of Indic influence on the script, the research also states so. Daniels doesn’t put a strong case forward and we can see evidence of vowels prior to Ezana. The idea that everything came from outside and was not an indigenous creation is nothing but Eurocentric nonsense 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:4550:EFE1:F5BB:5170 (talk) 22:23, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * There is evidence that the vowels of the Fidel were influenced by Indic scripts:
 * Unseth, Peter. "Missiology and Orthography: The Unique Contribution of Christian Missionaries in Devising New Scripts." Missiology 36.3: 357-371. Pete unseth (talk) 22:28, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That isn’t evidence. Those are theories pushed by the likes of Peter T daniels. They are seen as a Parallel indigenous innovation and the research supports such. The idea that Ethiopians/Eritreans we’re not the authors/developers or creators of their own civilisation and scripts is something pushed by Eurocentric for years. Should also add that Vowels do not come about in the script with the advent of Christianity. 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:841D:2C08:B58A:7574 (talk) 23:41, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * OSLa volume 8(1), 2016
 * numeral graphemes into the Ethiopic script (cf. [3.2]), and probably triggered the change in the direction of writing and the invention of additional syllab-ographs (cf. [3.1]).
 * 4
 * In the typology of writing systems, the modified Ethiopic script and Indic
 * scripts of the Brāhmī type belong to the same group, i.e. they are alphasyllabic
 * (Daniels 1997:24; Salomon 2000:93
 * 94; Coulmas 2003:152
 * 155; Comrie 2005:1192; Rogers 2005:208; Avanzini 2007b:160; Frantsouzoff 2010:580
 * 583; Voigt 2012:30). Although the similarity between the Ethiopic and Indic scripts has already been observed in the 19th century, direct Indic influence appeared unlikely. Consequently, it was assumed that the vowel diacritics in the Ethiopic alphasyllabary are an indigenous Ethio-Eritrean innovation (cf. especially Sa-lomon 2000:94; but also Dillmann 1857:19, 20 fn. 1; Jensen 1925:140; Ham-merschmidt 1994:317; Ullendorff 1951a:81
 * 82). Other possible influence, such as e.g. Christian missionaries (from the Middle East) (Littmann 1953:352) or In-dia (Daniels 1997:24), did not gain much acceptance.
 * 5
 * Historical and archaeological research shows that India and the Ethio-Eritrean region exchanged goods and had several cultural contacts during the times of the Aksumite kingdom and before it (Pankhurst 2007:142
 * 143; but also Phillips 1997:448
 * 451; 2014:254
 * 255, 261). Nevertheless, Salomon (2000:93
 * 94) argues that Indic alphasyllabaries differ to a certain extent from the two al-phasyllabaries in Northeast Africa, being Ethiopic and the Meroitic (cf. Voogt 2010 for its features), such that these scripts should be considered independent parallel innovations
 * as long no proof is found of direct Indic influence on
 * writing. However, inscriptions in an early Brāhmī script were found together
 * with graffiti in the Ethiopic abjad in a cave at Soqotra dating 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:841D:2C08:B58A:7574 (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * 451; 2014:254
 * 255, 261). Nevertheless, Salomon (2000:93
 * 94) argues that Indic alphasyllabaries differ to a certain extent from the two al-phasyllabaries in Northeast Africa, being Ethiopic and the Meroitic (cf. Voogt 2010 for its features), such that these scripts should be considered independent parallel innovations
 * as long no proof is found of direct Indic influence on
 * writing. However, inscriptions in an early Brāhmī script were found together
 * with graffiti in the Ethiopic abjad in a cave at Soqotra dating 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:841D:2C08:B58A:7574 (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * as long no proof is found of direct Indic influence on
 * writing. However, inscriptions in an early Brāhmī script were found together
 * with graffiti in the Ethiopic abjad in a cave at Soqotra dating 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:841D:2C08:B58A:7574 (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Page layout
If you increase the size of the font in Firefox browser and then view this page, the x1, x10... figures are shown outside the grid.

Korean Wiki Links in Sidebar
I'm seeing about 100 links to this empty Korean article on the left, in the "In other languages" box. How do we fix that? Josephgrossberg 03:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean. I can't see a Korean inter-wiki link in the list - so perhaps it's been created in a different way? There also seems to be a problem with the interpretation of the tables - has there been a change in the syntax that should be used? Any experts to help, please? Gailtb 08:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Something's wrong with the template. The same links occur in List of Islamic terms in Arabic, and other articles that use this template. Apparently it was due to a bot adding that Korean article to the template as a Korean equivalent. I've reverted the bot's edits and it works fine now. Someone will have to delete the article over at the Korean Wikipedia to prevent the bot from adding it again, though. Does anyone know any contributors over there? &mdash;  ዮም  |  (Yom)  |  Talk  • contribs • Ethiopia 19:36, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Number of symbols
Why can't I find the total number of symbols in this syllabary? That's a normal bit of information that should be contained in this article. Badagnani 21:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Can this please be addressed? Badagnani (talk) 01:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Modifications for other languages: Additional letters
IMHO is ዠ a palatalized variant, and not an affricated variant, of ዘ. --88.77.242.123 (talk) 20:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

messy sentence?
I think this sentence needs re-work... But maybe it's just me

The film 500 Years Later (፭፻-ዓመታት በኋላ) was the first mainstream Western documentary to use Ge'ez characters for the film title 500 Years Later.

192.114.175.2 05:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation of abugida
Anyone? This has now entered English. Where should the stress be? kwami (talk) 16:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Stress in Amharic and other Ethiopian Semitic languages that use the Ge'ez alphabet, does not fall on one of the vowels as in English, but rather on certain consonants. No attention is paid to stress on vowels, so you may stress whichever syllable you like.  In the word abugida, there are no stressed consonants.  Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, stress falls on syllables, not consonants or vowels. Are you saying that all vowels in abugida are pronounced with equal stress? Or that stress varies depending on how the word is used? If the latter, where does it fall when the word is said in citation? kwami (talk) 19:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, in Amharic, stress falls on certain consonants, not on syllables - as I said. (Read linguist Amsalu Aklilu if you don't believe me.) And what I am saying is that it does not matter which syllable you stress, if any. It will be interpreted the same, regardless. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * So you're saying that Amharic has no stress. (Sorry, but if you think consonants have stress, we don't mean the same thing by "stress".) kwami (talk) 09:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Standardisation needed
This article is in a total mess. Ge'ez is an abugida but the article mentions that it's a syllabary and even the title of the article mentions that it's an alphabet. Now I'm confused. kotak kasut 01:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

8th and 9th form of consonants
"Amharic uses all the basic consonants..." Is that really true? The Ge'ez table shows 8th and 9th forms of some consonants, which IMHO aren't present in Amharic. Can anyone confirm this? --Volker Alexander (talk) 19:01, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Amharic writers certainly use many of the symbols shown in the 8th and 9th columns. For example, 'waterfall' in Amharic is spelled with the labialized "fwa" symbol "fwafwate". However, many modern writers of Amharic will spell "ko" where tradition would indicate using "kwä". There is a fair amount of variation on this. Pete unseth (talk) 20:19, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * That's interesting. I'm using WashRa keyboard input method and now found the 8th column to be typeable with Minus key as second key stroke. Do you have an idea about how the 9th forms can be typed with this IME?
 * --Volker Alexander (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Diaspora usage section
"The Ge'ez script is used by Ethiopians who have emigrated to other countries around the world" Of course it is, it's their alphabet. This is no more noteworthy than saying that British people living in Africa use English.

"Also, Ge'ez is a sacred script in the Rastafarian religion" This may be notable.

"Roots reggae musicians have used it in album art." What does this add to the reader's understanding of Ge'ez script?

"The films 500 Years Later (፭፻-ዓመታት በኋላ) and Motherland (እናት ሀገር) are two mainstream Western documentaries to use Ge'ez characters in the titles. The script also appears in the trailer and promotional material of the films." Some people chose to use Ge'ez characters in the titles of their documentaries about Africa. Again, what does this add to the reader's understanding of Ge'ez? This section is nothing but a collection of arbitrary data points that someone added simply because they could.

--RevivesDarks (talk) 14:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't know what your understanding is of the meaning of the word "relevant", but obviously this certainly does pertain to the article topic, and is relevant by definition, as well as encyclopedic. What you consider "noteworthy" versus what someone else finds "noteworthy" or "maybe notable" is not so relevant but may be an indicator of a WP:Systemic bias.  We make an effort to give comprehensive information about the global use of this script, that it is not used exclusively in Ethiopia or by Ethiopians, as these two films prove. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:37, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I see you have chosen not to address my points but instead to spout babble at me. Who uses this script and where is indeed relevant, but "Ethiopians use it amongst themselves even when not in Ethiopia" is to be expected because it's their alphabet. If Ethiopians use it then it is clear that they will use it even outside Ethiopia. This factoid is no more relevant than "English people use English even when in Africa".
 * Furthermore, in our article on the English language we note that it is used globally, even outside nominally English-speaking countries. Yet we do not note things like "many French musicians sing in English", because this does not belong in a broad encyclopaedic overview of the English language. It may belong in a book about it, but it is not needed in an encyclopaedia. Why is this any different? --RevivesDarks (talk) 15:03, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * English and Amharic Script are not the same thing. Ge'ez is a rare African script, the only one in usage. So it is not Latin. The Notability is because the films use Ge'ez not for random fun, But as part of a broader agenda to broadcast to the African Diaspora the existence of an African native script. If you read other rare script articles like Adinkra you will find similar remarks about their usage outside of their native lands.--Inayity (talk) 15:16, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Very well, I see your point. Thank you for actually replying to my points. I concede most of the issue, but I still think the first sentence is completely useless. --RevivesDarks (talk) 18:51, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

ቝ and ቚ interchanged?
My question is in the title: haven’t ቝ and ቚ been interchanged in this article?

Tohuvabohuo (talk) 05:03, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Proper Latin script typography of name ‘Geʻez’
I have updated this article to use the ‘correct’ character for representing the glottal stop, ie the ʻOkina, within the body of the text. I confirmed this is the correct character by consulting Bright’s ‘The World’s Writing Systems’ (p. 98). However, it occurs to me that ideally this should be also reflected in the title of the article as well (as with the ʻOkina example). Of course this is a typographic quibble, but IMO it is an important one. pablohoney (talk) 22:07, 8 April 2015 (UTC)


 * No, the okina is not correct. The okina is not used for languages other than Hawaiian and other Austronesian languages. The traditional symbol for the glottal stop in Semitic languages is a semicircle ʾ (Unicode "Modifier Leter Right Half Ring", 02BE), and for the voiced pharyngeal a semicircle in the other direction ʿ (Modifier Letter Left Half Ring, 02BF). That's what you're seeing in The World's Writing Systems. (These are tiny in the Wikipedia font, but larger in most fonts.) The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are ʔ and ʕ respectively. Linguistatlunch (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I deleted material sourced from Ifrah and Teresi
These are terrible sources. Ifrah has the tendency of claiming certainty too quickly. When there's still doubt about something, or when things are clouded in the mists of time, he tends to pick something he likes and proclaim that as fact.

Teresi is even worse. When he writes he always has a heavy agenda, and he frequently puts words in people's mouths, leaves out things that might contradict his preferred narrative, cherry-picks, presents unreliable sources as more reliable than they are, and so on. He always picks a narrative first, and then rakes material together, instead of first doing research and then deciding on a narrative.

For these reasons, these two writers aren't reliable sources. You simply cannot trust whether anything they've written is actually so. For that reason, I've removed material sourced from these two. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.114.146.117 (talk) 16:02, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Problem with trying to give IPA pronunciations for symbols
The same set of symbols is used by a number of languages, but not always for the same sounds. Maybe we should decide if the IPA transcription given for each symbol are estimates as to the reconstructed sounds heard specifically in Ge'ez, a language that is no longer natively spoken. Some of the same characters will be pronounced quite differently in Amharic, Tigrinya, and Silt'e. Pete unseth (talk) 23:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Also, citing sources for that IPA would be good. --Akhenaten0 (talk) 15:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Who wrote this crap?
Geez is alternatively called Etiopic and it is fully developed in Ethiopia. This piece has lots of errors 1) the mention of Eritrea. The Eritrean region has nothing to do with the development of the script. The script was fully developed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Eritreans use it because they were part of Ethiopia. 2) the Arabian connection: Geez might have evolved from an ancient Sabean script. However it is totally different now. It has added vowels and some other characters. There is no other country that uses Ge'ez other than Ethiopia and the Ethiopians living in their new country Eritrea — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ttimes93 (talk • contribs) 21:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Quotation marks in Ge'ez
Does the Ge'ez script have its own quotation marks or do they use those used in various languages that use the Latin alphabet when required? -- sion8 talk page 06:10, 3 February 2019 (UTC)


 * if im not mistaken, at least in tig, we use just the " " . i speak a bit. DannyM999x (talk) 20:04, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Adding Chaha to "Letters used in modern alphabets"?
Would anyone be able to add Chaha to the great table on the "Letters_used_in_modern_alphabets" section? I know they made further adaptations to the Ge'ez script for its special sounds, but not sure which. Thanks! Illang (talk) 03:58, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Vocalization definition
I put in a general wiki link to vocalization, but of the various definitions of the term, I’m only almost sure L-vocalization is meant in the context of the usage here. It likely would be better if the author had put in a brief explanation, a sentence, as to what he means by the term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sychonic (talk • contribs) 16:39, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Punctuation
In this section, it would appear colon and semicolon are the wrong way round. Compare to the unicode table. 92.19.135.146 (talk) 23:14, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Fixed. DRMcCreedy (talk) 02:08, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you.

የኔ ፍቅር
ፍቅር 197.156.95.233 (talk) 18:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Pronunciation of the name Ge'ez
The IPA transcription in the first sentence of the article, [ˈɡɨʕɨz], does not match the sound clip, which is more like [ˈɡɨːz], similar to [gɪːz]. They should match. If someone wants to add the reconstructed ancient pronunciation [ɡɨʕɨz] they may, but it shouldn't be alongside the sound clip and it should be explained. Linguistatlunch (talk) 18:42, 26 January 2023 (UTC)


 * came here to say exactly the same thing, the audio and the IPA do not match on this article. I do not know which one is correct, but they aren't the same, or even particularly similar. The IPA given is [ɡɨʕɨz] (bisyllabic, broken by a fricative, and with a vowel unfamiliar to English speakers), and the audio clip is just something like [gɛz], that is to say, rhymes with English "fez" (for those who don't read IPA).  This complete inconsistency should be ironed out.  --Tomatoswoop (talk) 16:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Numerals
What is the evidence that they borrowed the numerals from Greek? 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:553:C7E9:15D6:F4EE (talk) 10:48, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * There seems to be thing that if both use a similar system then it is attributed to outside influence 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:553:C7E9:15D6:F4EE (talk) 10:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Eurocentrism
If the vocalisation occurred because of Indic scripts what was actually Ethiopian is seems like a deliberate attempt to suppress any type of autonomy 31.94.60.249 (talk) 18:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)


 * https://www.academia.edu/7131233 Venomas47 (talk) 03:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That in no way disputes what I wrote. No evidence of such and neither was south Arabian the prototype for Ge’ez Habesha212 (talk) 23:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Indic influence: how is that "Eurocentric"?
Scripts, or some of their features, are borrowed frequently. The traditional Mongol script has some remnants from Aramaic script. This Roman script is borrowed and adapted from the Middle East. This example of script borrowing is hardly Eurocentric! The Nüshu script in China borrowed from standard Chinese characters. The earlier Ancient South Arabian script used in Ethiopia did not mark vowels. After passengers with Indian connections were shipwrecked on the Eritrean coast, a system of vowels was adopted for Ge'ez script. An important similar feature for Indic scripts and the Ge'ez script is that the unmarked form of the first symbol in each row carries a basic vowel. Unrelated syllabaries use an overt indication of a vowel for each symbol. All of this has nothing to do with the 21st century concept of "autonomy". Pete unseth (talk) 20:59, 29 January 2024 (UTC)


 * It most certainly is. We know fully well the history has been distorted beyond measure and therefore suggesting there was indic influence is an extension of such by suppressing any type of autonomy on the script. There is no evidence of this ship wreck, and neither are vowels an introduction of this so called ship wreck since we clearly see vowel letters on Wazeba coins. There is absolutely no proof of direct influence on Ge’ez and neither does Peter T daniels in any shape or form give a solid argument for such. Also the vocalisation is done in a very different manner to theirs hence why it was called hogwash in the first place. Habesha212 (talk) 23:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Can someone more knowledgeable add stuff to the number section.
The section on the number doesn’t mention anything on what type of numerals system it is or on how larger numbers are written. Legendarycool (talk) 11:02, 11 June 2024 (UTC)