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|iso15924=Ethi |children=Amharic alphabet, various other alphabets of Ethiopia and Eritrea |sample= |imagesize=200px }} Geʻez ( '), (also known as Ethiopic) is a script used as an ''abugida'' (syllable alphabet) for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an ''abjad'' (consonant-only alphabet) and was first used to write Geʻez, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. In Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is often called ' (), meaning “script” or “alphabet”. The Geʻez script has been adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, particularly Amharic in Ethiopia, and Tigrinya in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is also used for Sebatbeit, Meʻen, and most other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it is used for Tigre, and it has traditionally been used for Blin, a Cushitic language. Tigre, spoken in western and northern Eritrea, is considered to resemble Geʻez more than do the other derivative languages. Some other languages in the Horn of Africa, such as Oromo, used to be written using Geʻez, but have migrated to Latin-based orthographies. For the representation of sounds, this article uses a system that is common (though not universal) among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages. This differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet. See the articles on the individual languages for information on the pronunciation. == History and origins == The earliest inscriptions of Semitic languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia date to the 9th century BC in Epigraphic South Arabian (ESA), an Abjad shared with contemporary kingdoms in South Arabia. After the 7th and 6th centuries BC, however, variants of the script arose, evolving in the direction of the Geʻez abugida (a writing system that is also called an alphasyllabary). This evolution can be seen most clearly in evidence from inscriptions (mainly graffiti on rocks and caves) in Tigray region in northern Ethiopia and the former province of Akkele Guzay in Eritrea.〔Rodolfo Fattovich, "Akkälä Guzay" in Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C''. Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 2003, p. 169.〕 By the first centuries AD, what is called "Old Ethiopic" or the "Old Geʻez alphabet" arose, an abjad written left-to-right (as opposed to boustrophedon like ESA) with letters basically identical to the first-order forms of the modern vocalized alphabet (e.g. "k" in the form of "kä"). There were also minor differences such as the letter "g" facing to the right, instead of to the left as in vocalized Geʻez, and a shorter left leg of "l", as in ESA, instead of equally-long legs in vocalized Geʻez (resembling the Greek letter lambda, somewhat).〔Etienne Bernand, A. J. Drewes, and Roger Schneider, "Recueil des inscriptions de l'Ethiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite, tome I". Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Paris, Boccard, 1991.〕 Vocalization of Geʻez occurred in the 4th century, and though the first completely vocalized texts known are inscriptions by Ezana, vocalized letters predate him by some years, as an individual vocalized letter exists in a coin of his predecessor Wazeba.〔Grover Hudson, ''Aspects of the history of Ethiopic writing'' in "Bulletin of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies 25", pp. 1-12.〕〔Stuart Munro-Hay. ''Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity.'' Edinburgh, University Press. 1991. ISBN 0-7486-0106-6.〕 Linguist Roger Schneider has also pointed out (in an early 1990s unpublished paper) anomalies in the known inscriptions of Ezana that imply that he was consciously employing an archaic style during his reign, indicating that vocalization could have occurred much earlier.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Geʻez translations )〕 As a result, some believe that the vocalization may have been adopted to preserve the pronunciation of Geʻez texts due to the already moribund or extinct status of Geʻez, and that, by that time, the common language of the people were already later Ethio-Semitic languages. At least one of Wazeba's coins from the late 3rd or early 4th century contains a vocalized letter, some 30 or so years before Ezana.〔Stuart Munro-Hay, (''Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity'' ), p. 207.〕 Kobishchanov, Daniels, and others have suggested possible influence from the Brahmic family of alphabets in vocalization, as they are also abugidas, and Aksum was an important part of major trade routes involving India and the Greco-Roman world throughout the common era of antiquity.〔Yuri M. Kobishchanov. ''Axum'' (Joseph W. Michels, editor; Lorraine T. Kapitanoff, translator). University Park, Pennsylvania, Penn State University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-271-00531-9.〕〔Peter T. Daniels, William Bright, "The World's Writing Systems", Oxford University Press. Oxford, 1996.〕 According to the beliefs of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the original consonantal form of the Geʻez ''fidel'' was divinely revealed to Henos "as an instrument for codifying the laws", and the present system of vocalisation is attributed to a team of Aksumite scholars led by Frumentius (''Abba Selama''), the same missionary said to have converted the king Ezana to Christianity in the 4th century AD.〔(Official website of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church )〕 It has been argued that the vowel marking pattern of the script reflects a South Asian system, such as would have been known by Frumentius.〔Peter Unseth. Missiology and Orthography: The Unique Contribution of Christian Missionaries in Devising New Scripts. ''Missiology'' 36.3: 357-371.〕 A separate tradition, recorded by Aleqa Taye, holds that the Geʻez consonantal alphabet was first adapted by Zegdur, a legendary king of the Ag'azyan Sabaean dynasty held to have ruled in Ethiopia c. 1300 BC.〔Aleqa Taye, ''History of the Ethiopian People'', 1914〕 Geʻez has 26 consonantal letters. Compared to the inventory of 29 consonants in the South Arabian alphabet, continuants are missing of ''ġ'', ', and South Arabian ''s3'' (Geʻez Sawt ሠ being derived from South Arabian ''s2'' 14px), as well as ''z'' and ''ṯ'', these last two absences reflecting the collapse of interdental with alveolar fricatives. On the other hand, emphatic ጰ, a Geʻez innovation, is a modification of ጸ, while Pesa ፐ is based on Tawe ተ. Thus, there are 24 correspondences of Geʻez and the South Arabian alphabet: Many of the letter names are cognate with those of Phoenician, and may thus be assumed for Proto-Sinaitic. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ge'ez script」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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