Cultural Post #4

[Berhaun Fesshaye]

The writing system in Amharic is called Ge’ez, also known as Ethiopic. Ge’ez was the original language spoken in Ethiopia, but now it is only used for speech in Ethiopian and Eritrean churches. This Ge’ez script has been adapted to write Amharic and Tigrinya. Ge’ez was first an abjad, or a consonant only alphabet. Now there are 33 basic letters and each letter have seven different forms based on the vowel that is pronounced. In total, there are 231 characters used to represent of all the sounds in Amharic. Since the alphabet is so extensive, I do not plan to learn how to write anything other than my name but I would like to be able to read a few common words or phrases.