Machaho Tellem Chaho

"By remembering the past, the future is remembered". These notes are taken from Mengesha Rikitu's research on "Oromo Folk Tales for a new generation" by (see also his "Oromo Proverbs" and "Oromo Grammar"). Some proverbs are folk tales are worth the detour: 1) Oromo Proverb – Harreen yeroo alaaktu malee, yeroo dhuudhuuftu hin'beektu   "The Donkey doesn't know that it is farting again and again when it is braying." (ie some people concentrating on their own verbosity are unaware of what is going on behind them) You can tell that dhuudhuuftu is the farting can't you, am betting on the sound that word makes. Oromifa is one of the five most widely spoken (Afroasiatic) languages in Africa. Its importance lies in the numbers of its speakers and in its geographical extent. The 'official' numbers point to 30 million Oromo speakers (but there has not been to this day a complete or reliable census). The majority...

Notes based on "Ethiopic : An African Writing System / Its History and Principle" by Ayele Bekerie, The Red Sea Press, 1997. In his chapter 'The History and Principles of the Ethiopic Writing System', Professor Bekerie introduces parts of the exegesis for Ge'ez. I wish I could get my hands on Asras Yanesaw's Yakam Matasabia, preferably translated in English (I'll settle for French also mind you). Anyways, briefly, this is what I wanted to share: Ge'ez is a writing system that organises itself around 7 orders (what Indo-European terminology would categorise as vowels within a syllabary) and 26 graphs. I keep here the term graph used by Professor Bekerie and I really hope that his new term 'syllograph' for Ge'ez will be widely accepted and adopted from now on by Ethiopianists. Indeed, Ge'ez is NOT an alphabet! On a personal note, I do think that there would be much to be gained from observing Ge'ez's graphs as logograms or a...