One fun interaction I had this past week related to the Ge’ez language is receiving a letter in Ge’ez from my friend in Dallas, Texas. I sent her a letter a while ago in tigrigna and she leveled up to Ge’ez. While we are both novices in the Ge’ez language we make efforts to practice and formulate sentences between each other and our other friends. It makes for a nice challenge and a purposeful use of language!
Here is the letter.
In it, she begins with and greeting that says: ifo haloki or how are you...she continues to recall the last time we actually saw each other at a friend’s wedding and she comments on how long it has been. She describes me quite poetically and wishes me the best. There she ends it saying “be well until we see each other next”. It is a mix of Ge’ez and Tigrigna throughout which is interesting because some words are close enough to being cognates but some aren’t. On the other hand with the verb conjugations, there is a similar pattern where the difficult conjugations lean towards Tigirgna.
Some letters are hard to decipher when written by hand because they differ by such minute marks or lengths of strokes. It’s very interesting to read the handwriting of others because I don’t do so often. I am usually reading digital texts or printed texts. There are also some handwritten scriptures that I have to get used to reading.
I plan to write back with a narrative. I can talk about a young girl, daughter of modernized parents in the U.S. who loves Ge’ez and has always wanted to learn it. She sets off into the monastery to learn because that’s where all the teachers are. She learns more things than she expected; how to speak with kindness, humility, and patience. I want to name the character Hanna which is my friend’s name and it also means grace. The character’s name will be revealed at the end. I hope she will find it amusing.
I think this kind of application will help me with my use of Ge’ez because of the relaxed, low pressure situation. Also it is fun to imagine and discover new words through searching for the ones to fit the story. I may post an update to this post later on in my cultural artifacts or journals.
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