THE POWER OF THE TEXT: Ge’ez: An Ancient Ethiopic Script in Prince George’s County, Maryland...
-
Upload
katrina-peters -
Category
Documents
-
view
220 -
download
0
Transcript of THE POWER OF THE TEXT: Ge’ez: An Ancient Ethiopic Script in Prince George’s County, Maryland...
THE POWER OF THE TEXT:Ge’ez: An Ancient Ethiopic Script in Prince George’s County, Maryland
Janet Chernela, Bethany Applebaum, Amy Carattini, Rachel Menyuk, Noelle Haile, and Shoshi Weiss
(U Maryland)
Ge’ez: An Ancient Script
Ge’ez (ɡɨʕɨz), also known as Ethiopic, is a Semitic language that developed in the horn of Africa. It was the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and the Ethiopian imperial court. It was a spoken language until the tenth century.
Versions of Ge’ez formed the languages of present-day Ethiopia: Tigrina in the north and Amharic in the south.
A written form of Ge’ez was preserved specifically for religious purposes.
Ge’ez: A Written, But Not Spoken, Language
Ge’ez is an alphasyllabary script, called an abugida, in which a character represents a consonant and a vowel together. This is different from alphabetic script, where each character denotes one sound -- either a consonant or a vowel.
Ge’ez has 26 main symbols. Some Ge’ez symbols appear to be pictographic, such as the symbol for house, while others are phonetic – indicating sound.
More on Ge’ez
Ge’ez characters also carry numeric values; the numeric system reaches the number 5600. The symbols can also be organized into a calendar of one-half year or one equinox, with months of 30 days each.
Unlike other Semitic scripts that are written right-to-left, Ge’ez is written left-to-right.
Today, Ge’ez is the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
This Ethiopian Orthodox Church is in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Debre Genet Medhane Alem Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
This is the entrance to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Temple Hills, Maryland.
African immigrants are among the newest citizens of Maryland.
There are about 400,000 African born residents in the US.
Nearly 70% of Africans living in the US today arrived within the past 25 years.
Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area (including Maryland and Virginia suburbs) is site of the largest concentration of African immigrants in the country. Ethiopian immigrants constitute largest subset, 18,000
people.
Ethiopian Immigrants in Maryland
Of the 18,000 Ethiopian immigrants in the Washington, D.C. Area, over half (10,712) reside in Maryland.
Another Sacred Ethiopian Text: The Kebra Nagast
The Kebra Nagast (also Kebra Negast) is a sacred book of the Ethiopian Orthodox church. In English it is called The Book of the Glory of Kings.
The Kebra Nagast was first written in Coptic. It was later copied by hand into Arabic, and finally, into Ge’ez.
In its present form, the Kebra Nagast is at least 700 years old.
The Kebra Nagast Text and the Arc of the Covenant
According to the Kebra Nagast, the Arc of the Covenant with the tablets received by Moses on Mt. Sinai, was taken from Jerusalem to Ethiopia by Menelik I.
This is an
important foundational text for Ethiopians.
The Covenant: A Sacred Text
Replicas of the powerful text are carried throughout Ethiopia in processions of the important Tabot ceremony.
The Covenant: A Sacred Text
Tabot procession, Ethiopia Tabot Procession, Maryland
A replica is also carried in the Tabot ceremony in Maryland.
Musical Texts
Liturgical music written in Ge’ez, requiring lessons and memorization, is part of the religious service.
The Power of Writing: Similarities and Differences
The way Ge’ez is preserved for religious texts is similar to the way Hebrew was kept as a written language when it was not spoken. Hebrew was revived as a spoken language after 1600 years.
Latin, another language that is written but not spoken, has a special role in religious and legal matters.
Ge’ez is kept alive by a specialized priesthood that is able to read it and to write it.
Bibliography
Adugna, Gebeyehu1998. African Immigration in the Modern Era. College Park: Center for Information Policy, University of
Maryland.Arthur, John.2000. Invisible Sojourners: African Immigrant Diaspora in the United States. Westport: Praeger.Bakhtin, MikhailBrandon, George. 1997. Yoruba. In American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation. David Levinson and
Melvin Ember, eds. New York: MacMillan Bucholtz, Mary1996 Cultural Performances: Proceedings of the Third Berkley Women and Language Conference April 1994 .
Berkley: Berkley Women and Language Group, University of California.Chacko, Elizabeth2003. Ethiopian Ethos and the Creation of Ethnic Places in the Washington Metropolitan Area. Journal of
Cultural Geography. 20 (2): 21-42.Chambers, Erve. 2006. Heritage Matters: Heritage, Culture, History, and the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland: Sea Grant
Publication.Eckert, Penelope2000 Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity in Beltin
High. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Holmes, Janet & Miriam Meyerhoff1999 The Community of Practice: Theories and Methodologies in Language and Gender Research. Language
in Society 28(2): 173-183.
Bibliography
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara1995. Theorizing Heritage. Ethnomusicology, 39(3): 367-380.Lave, Jean & Etienne Wenger1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge. University Press. Oral and Written Transmission in Ethiopian Christian Chant Shelemay, Kay Kaufman; Peter Jeffery; Ingrid Monson 1993 Early Music History, Vol. 12. pp. 55-117. Speer, Tibbett. 1994. The Newest African Americans aren't Black. American Demographics 16(1):9-10. _____ 1995. A Cracked Door; U.S. Policy welcome's only Africa's brightest and richest. Emerge 6(9):36. Turner, Victor1986. Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience. The Anthropology of
Experience. Edited by Victor W. Turner and Edward M. Burner. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 33-44.
Wenger, Etienne1998. Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity Press.
Wilson, Jill. 2003. African Immigrants in Metropolitan Washington: A Demographic Overview. Presentation to the African
Immigrants and Refugees Foundation. Nov. 18.Worku, Nida2007. African Religious Beliefs and Practices in Diaspora: An Ethnographic Observation of Activities at an
Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church in Los Angeles. African Immigrant Religions in America. Edited by Jacob K. Olupona and Regina Gemignani. New York: New York University Press, 207-226.
Photo Images and Acknowledgments
All photographs in Maryland were taken by our research team.
Ethiopia photo images from www.brigish.com/wazee/ethiopia/legend.htm
www.selamta.net/Ark%2520of%2520the%2520Covenant
We wish to thank the Center for Heritage Resource Studies and the Department of Anthropology of the University of Maryland.
We can be reached at [email protected], [email protected]