Ge’ez and Amharic belong to the Semitic language family. Growing up I was told that Ge’ez is the parent of a couple of languages on the horn of Africa such as Tigre, Tigrigna, and Amharic. This is because it spoken much less now and the languages like Tigrigna and Amharic are said to come later. Ge’ez is also the sister of Aramic, Arabic, and Hebrew. According to the Semitic Language Family Tree from the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition, it shows Tigrigna, Ge’ez, and Amharic on the same plane along with Aramaic and Arabic. However, Hebrew is on the next plane (5th). By plane I mean number of generations from the proto language. I am tempted to think number of planes indicates time period, though I am not sure.
Languages in this same family have similar phonetic inventories that are unique to this area like the throaty [k] sound. These are also languages that are deeply rooted in Abrahamic faith traditions and thus many similar cultural traditions. The Proto-Semitic family came from the Proto-Afro-Asiatic family.
Linguists make language family trees and document the known languages. As of 2017, there were 7,099 documented languages and 145 language families according to Ethnologue. It is interesting that my perception based on oral tradition may be a little different than what is documented regarding the relationship between Tigrigna/Amharic and Ge’ez. However, maybe it is just that the period of time between Tigrigna/Amharic and Ge’ez is not significant enough, relatively, to be categorized on a different plane.
The Semitic Language Family Tree
(from the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition)
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