GE’EZ (a.k.a. “Ethiopic”) AS A WRITING SYSTEM FOR TRADITIONALLY “ILLITERATE” AFRICAN LANGUAGES NOW USING THE IMPERIAL COLONIALIST ROMAN ALPHABET OR THE SO-CALLED “AJAMI” ARABIC SCRIPT, AND ALSO FOR AFRICAN-DIASPORA DIALECTS (GULLAH-GEECHEE, JAMAICAN CREOLE, AFRO-CUBAN LUCUMI, PALO-MAYOMBE LITURGICAL KONGO, ETC…). ግዕዝ “Ge’ez” (a.k.a. “Ethiopic”) is the official writing system of Ethiopia where it’s (or has recently been) used to write Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Oromo, and a number of other languages in that area of Africa. And as I’ve written elsewhere on my Facebook wall, that writing system has been used on the continent of Africa south of the Sahara since antiquity with the oldest known inscriptions I’m aware of reportedly dating to a period apparently contemporary with the 18th Dynasty of Kemet (a.k.a. “Ancient Egypt”) which was over 3000 years ago, and it has been in continuous daily use in that region of Africa south of the Sahara without a break from then right up till this very day (unlike the Medu-Neter [a.k.a. “Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs”] and Meroitic Kushite/Nubian which were significantly [not thoroughly] discontinued in their ancient forms some time over 1000 years ago with their writing systems only recently deciphered significantly [not absolutely] resulting from Western scholarship and primarily that of Champollion of France). And its characters have remained uniformed over that period of time to such a degree that it’s not too difficult for one already familiar with modern Ge’ez to navigate Ethiopian inscriptions written in antiquity. Because it’s never gone into disuse with Africans on the African continent, Ge’ez has never had to be subjected to Western scientific decipherments or relegated to museums, antiquities collections, textbooks, periodicals, lecture halls, etc… -- it’s still living in the minds, heats and milieu of millions of people on the African continent in Ethiopia and Eritrea. One desiring to learn the Ge’ez writing system can simply go directly to an Ethiopian African who learned it from an African who leaned it from an African, etc… whereas with the Medu-Neter you’ll be learning it from a black/African who may have learned it from a black/African, etc… who learned it from a book by Budge (Anglo), or a book by Gardiner (Anglo), Falkner (Anglo), etc… on back to Champollion (French) who I know deciphered it with the help of African languages (Coptic Egyptian, Ethiopic, etc…), and the same is true with Meroitic where you’ll eventually end up at Griffith (Anglo). This is because Medu-Neter and Meroitic were discontinued while Ge’ez is still living and has been living for well over 2000 years since antiquity without a break in usage or a need for “revival” which is a point I’m known to stress since many seem to miss out on it and be confused about it or unwilling to accept it or just don’t care even if they happen to know better. To my knowledge, there’s no other African writing system (particularly south of the Sahara) that can boast of such longevity in continuum, daily use, practical development, accessibility (it’s readily available in modern electronic media and comes as part of the language settings on every computer I’ve ever had where I’ve lived to my knowledge and I use it regularly as can be seen with many of my Facebook activities) -- I regularly do internet searches with the Ge’ez writing system. In 1936 A.C.E. of the Gregorian Calendar, Jamaican-born author Joel Augustus Rogers published a document entitled “The Real Facts About Ethiopia” in which he wrote on page thirty that “Amharic, the official Ethiopian language, should be taught in Negro schools” among other good things regarding opportunities available to “Aframericans” in Ethiopia during those days. Then on July 24th, 1954, “The Afro-American” publishes “Haile’s gold medal awarded to [J.A.] Rogers” for his scholarship, thus, King Haile Selassie I clearly agreed with what some might consider “Proto-Afrocentric” literature and King Selassie I was a consumer of such material as that same article also mentions that King Selassie I ordered 128 copies of Rogers’ book “World’s Great Men of Color, 3000 B.C. to 1946 A.D.”. In addition to the previous paragraph is the fact that Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church missionary activities “officially” start in the African-Diaspora (namely Trinidad and eventually N.Y.) at least as early as 1952 A.C.E. (although there were Garveyite Copts in the African-Diaspora under a “bishop named Edwin Collins” as early as the 1940’s A.C.E.). Thus, it is via these “avenues” that the usage of the Ge’ez writing system by the African-Diaspora has been legitimized by the King of Ethiopia himself as well as from the efforts of the missionaries of his country which is something that no potentially subsequent chauvinistic no-name individual can legitimately dismiss. And along with the Ras-Tafarians before me, I have taken it upon myself to take full advantage of this very convenient opportunity to develop an African-centered curriculum using the Ethiopian writing system of Africa to write several African languages (Swahili, Kongo, Yoruba, Soninke, etc…) and African-Diaspora languages (Gullah-Geechee, Afro-Cuban Lucumi, Jamaican “Afro-English”, Palo-Mayombe Congo, African-American Vernacular/”Ebonics”, etc…) rather than continue to use primarily the imperial colonialist Roman alphabet of Europe and the so-called “Ajami” Arabic letters of Arabia in West-Asia. The following are listed in Ge’ez order. Yoruba-Ge’ez (for the popular Oyo dialect): + u i a e e. o L ሉሊላሌልሎ H ሑሒሓሔሕሖ M ሙሚማሜምሞ S ሡሢሣሤሥሦ R ሩሪራሬርሮ SH ሹሺሻሼሽሾ B ቡቢባቤብቦ T ቱቲታቴትቶ N ኑኒናኔንኖ Ny ኙኚኛኜኝኞ Vowels: ኢኣኤእ (i, a, e, e.). K ኩኪካኬክኮ W ዉዊዋዌውዎ Vowels: ዑዓዖ (u, o., o). Y ዩዪያዬይዮ D ዱዲዳዴድዶ J ጁጂጃጄጅጆ G ጉጊጋጌግጎ F ፉፊፋፌፍፎ P ፑፒፓፔፕፖ Note: 1) To write the Yoruba sound “gb” with Ge’ez letters, combine the Yoruba-Ge’ez “5th order” (traditionally the Ge’ez “6th order”) character “ግ“ before any one of the Ge-ez characters ቡቢባቤብቦ. 2) To write the Yoruba language with Ge’ez letters, the character ዓ is used to represent the “o” with a dot under it, and it’s rendered after characters from the Yoruba-Ge’ez “5th order” (the “6th order” in traditional Ge’ez). 3) Yoruba (and Swahili) phonology doesn’t have the vowel sound of the 1st Ge’ez order, so it’s obsolete when writing the Yoruba language which means that the Yoruba-Ge’ez “1st order” is traditionally the Ge’ez “2nd order”. 4) Ge’ez has 2-3 letters to represent “H” sounds whereas Yoruba has only one “H” sound and only needs one Ge’ez “H” to render it in writing. Early attempts to write the Yoruba language with the Roman alphabet (namely those made by Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther) employed “H” and “R” for silent unpronounced diacritical marks indicating tone (the former a high tone and the latter a low tone) if I remember right (I don’t have those notes next to me right now), and the English language is also known to use the letter “H” as a silent character as in the English word “hour” for just one of several such cases in the English language. Therefore, significantly because of current computing software limitations and because of their simplicity in form, the Ge’ez letters ሂ “hi” and ሃ “ha” are used as silent unpronounced diacritical marks before the characters they govern (ሂ= low tone; ሃ = high tone) while their other orders are omitted from the Yoruba-Ge’ez orthography and the Ge’ez letters ሑሒሓሔሕሖ are used to represent syllables initiating with the Yoruba “H” sound. Although this basic “H” sound isn’t the traditional Ge’ez value for the letters ሑሒሓሔሕሖ which traditionally represent an alternate “H” sound, to do this in my opinion is even more legitimate than using the Roman letter “J” to represent the “H” sound in Spanish and “J” sound in the English word “jump” -- Spanish is one European language and English is another European language, and they both use the same Roman alphabet of Europe with relative (not absolute) uniformity and enough practical peculiarities for the “convenience” or whatever of writing their own languages. This is how it should be with traditionally “illiterate” African languages written with the Ge’ez letters of Africa rather than using non-African writing systems like the Roman alphabet and so-called “Ajami” Arabic script (the Arabic word “Ajami” apparently having somewhat “dismissive” connotations). Again at this time because of current software limitations, this “diacritics rule” is required in computing while optional in handwriting where the small slanted “accent marks” already familiar to Yoruba as written with the their usage of the Roman alphabet may be employed with the Ge’ez letters for tones (where they’re written before or above the characters they govern). 5) To “nasalize” a syllable in the Yoruba language written with Ge’ez letters, simply write the Ge’ez letter “-ን“ from the Yoruba-Ge’ez “5th order” (the traditional Ge’ez “6th order”) after the syllable it governs just as is done at this time with the Yoruba usage of their version of the Roman alphabet where they us an “-n” for that purpose. Swahili-Ge’ez: + u i a e -- o L ሉሊላሌልሎ H ሑሒሓሔሕሖ M ሙሚማሜምሞ S ሡሢሣሤሥሦ R ሩሪራሬርሮ SH ሹሺሻሼሽሾ B ቡቢባቤብቦ V ቩቪቫቬቭቮ T ቱቲታቴትቶ N ኑኒናኔንኖ Ny ኙኚኛኜኝኞ Vowels: ኢኣኤ (i, a, e, ). K ኩኪካኬክኮ W ዉዊዋዌውዎ Vowels: ዑዖ (u, o). Z ዙዚዛዜዝዞ Y ዩዪያዬይዮ D ዱዲዳዴድዶ J ጁጂጃጄጅጆ G ጉጊጋጌግጎ Dh ጡጢጣጤጥጦ Ch ጩጪጫጬጭጮ Th ፁፂፃፄፅፆ F ፉፊፋፌፍፎ P ፑፒፓፔፕፖ Note: 1) Combine the Ge’ez character ን- with any one of the characters ጉጊጋጌግጎ in order to render the Swahili sound “ng-” in writing with Ge’ez or combine ን- with ዙዚዛዜዝዞ to write “nz-”. 2) Combine the Ge’ez character ም- with any one of the characters ዉዊዋዌውዎ to write the Swahili sound “mw-” or ቡቢባቤብቦ to write the Swahili sound “mb-”. 3) Combine the Ge’ez character ግ- with any one of the characters ሑሒሓሔሕሖ to write the Swahili “gh-” sound. Just follow the logic in this pattern and you should have no problem writing Swahili with Ethiopian letters. 4) When used to write the Swahili language, the consonants of the Ge’ez syllabic characters ፁፂፃፄፅፆ have the phonetic value of the “th-” as in the English verb “think” unlike in traditional Ge’ez. 5) When used to write the Swahili language, the consonants of the Ge’ez syllabic characters ጡጢጣጤጥጦ have the phonetic value of the East Indian “dh” which sounds like the English “th” in the English demonstrative “distant” plural pronoun “those” unlike in traditional Ge’ez. Thus, in this way is maintained enough uniformity with traditional Ge’ez that people already familiar with the Ge’ez writing system can easily navigate literature written with it in the Swahili and Yoruba languages with little difficulty while only slight modifications were made to as few characters as possible in order to write these non-Ge’ez languages as efficiently as possible with the Ge’ez writing system of Africa. Why (to my knowledge) African-centered scholars attempting to develop practical African-centered curriculum/s for our younger generations didn’t simply combine African cultures in a practical “All-African” (a.k.a. “Pan-African) manner using Ge’ez to write Yoruba, Swahili, etc… a very long time ago (like approaching a century ago now) is beyond me. I was born just a few days before 1970, so, I think people my age at least should’ve been writing Swahili with Ge’ez letters by now -- Ge’ez should’ve been our first writing system as people of recent African ancestry wherever we are. Why some (not all) of us seem complacent with the Roman alphabet and English language while communicating among ourselves as people of African ancestry I’m not sure why at this time IF we’re truly “African-centered” and not just “Mad at those other people over there!” rather than building. Now, I’m not advocating to abandon the Medu-Neter or Meroitic at all, and neither am I implying that the fact that Westerners played a major role in the decipherments of those ancient “extinct” African writing systems of the Nile Valley somehow suggests that the Medu-Neter and Meroitic African writing systems are the monopoly of Western interests or whatever as I’ve known some to say. I’m simply saying to replace the Roman letters that you’re now reading with Ethiopian letters in transliterations from the Medu-Neter which would make your communication more African using an available developed and established ancient African writing system for the purpose rather than a European alphabet like Roman as many so-called “African-centered“ individuals still do today. Thus, I’d write ኬምት rather than “Kemet”, ሖትጵ rather that “hotep”, ዱኣ rather than “dua”, etc… -- taking full advantage of the fact that Africa south of the Sahara (Ethiopia is south of Senegal and Gambia) has a very well developed established and widely used ancient African writing system already available in modern electronic technical communication for transliterating the Medu-Neter and for writing any African language or African-Diaspora dialect with only a few minor modifications to do it effectively. This is the fastest most practical way to “Africanize” our graphic communication in modern times electronically and in print among ourselves as African descent people. Instead of constantly talking about “Africanization”, just do it because, while some have been playing around, I’ve (to my knowledge) been allowed to become one of the most (if not the most) practical pioneers in this area of African-centered curriculum development and cultural refinement in preparation for (or at least in addition to since I really consider this an extension of what’s already been started) what Dr. C. A. Diop called “The African Renaissance”. And this is just one of such things I’ve apparently pioneered (to my knowledge) as I have one or two more projects to reveal hopefully sometime in June (within a few days or weeks). At the left of this photo group is J. A. Rogers of Jamaica, in the center is a coin of King Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia with his image on it along with his title, and on the right is an old photo of a Ras-Tafarian elder in Jamaica teaching the Ge’ez writing system. Hope this helps. But, if not, then I guess it’s just my thing I do. -a repost
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:21:36 +0000
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