The Transliteration of Amharic

Institute of Ethiopian Studies

The Transliteration of AmharicAuthor(s): STEPHEN WRIGHTSource: Journal of Ethiopian Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (JANUARY 1964), pp. 1-10Published by: Institute of Ethiopian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41965703 .

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The Transliteration

of Amharic

by STEPHEN WRIGHT

Transliteration is not the same as transcription. Transcription is the re- production of sounds in writing, and is the task of the phonetician, self- conscious or natural, and has long been accomplished for every widely spoken language. Of those less sophisticated languages which never developed their own systems of writing, nor borrowed a script from a neighbour, most acquired (generally through foreign scholars or missionaries within the last century) a recognised system of spelling, either in the roman alphabet or in a phonetic modification thereof. In these languages the transcriber usually had a clear field; the system devised by the first (often the only) linguist for a language is likely - provided that he was a reasonably efficient phonetician - to remain the standard transcription for it on the rare occasions when one is required. (Literacy is now as a rule encouraged only in more widely spoken national languages, minor unwritten tongues being allowed tacitly to disappear.) However, it is unfortunate that one of the unwritten languages of Ethiopia - Gallerma (Galla or Oromo), which for various reasons is likely to survive indefinitely - has been variously transcribed by Italian, French and English grammarians and lexicographers, as well as having occasionally been written in Amharic script, though not authoritatively nor consistently.

The main purpose of this article is, on the other hand, to discuss what seems at first sight a simple question: how to transliterate the Ethiopian script - which is normal for Ge'ez, Amharic and Tegreñña - into the roiiian alphabet. One factor which should contribute to simplicity is the phonetic character of the Ethiopian script: anomalies are few and for the most part un- important. But actually this very factor gives rise to certain difficulties, for local and even individual varieties of pronounciation can - and are apt to - be reflected in the spelling. No Ethiopian Acadetíiy or other body exists which is in a position to set an example, much less to enforce the use, of standardized spelling. In transliterating, therefore, whatever the basic frame- work we adopt, we shall always be liable to face the alternatives of being inconsistent or of tacitly "correcting" the Amharic spelling (which may involve scientific impropriety).



But the principal difficulty - or rather distraction - that we shall meet is that there already exist several different rough-and-ready ways of rendering many Amharic words, particularly names of persons and of places. We may mention the practices adopted by the English-language Ethiopian newspapers, and by the "Negarit Gazeta"; in the Telephone Directory; in propaganda literature; and on hundreds of private visiting cards. These last in particular reflect the varieties of educational and other foreign contacts experienced by Ethiopians: spellings are concocted which have a strong (but not always refined) flavour of French, Italian, English or (occasionally) German ingredients. Thus we find Menguecha, Mengascia, Mangasha or Mangascha; differences may be as great as Seyoum and Sium; Imru and Emmerou; Kabbada, Kebede and Chebbede; Walde, Wolde, Weide, Uolde, Uelde, Oueldé and Oualde; all of which sets some nice problems for librarians in deciding the correct "filing" order in their catalogues, as well as for firms maintaining mailing lists in Ethiopia,

Furthermore, linguists themselves have rarely been content to follow a system devised by one of their predecessors; each new grammar or dictionary that appears is apt to display a new transliteration which, however consistent and "scientific" it may be, is likely to be influenced by the nationality of the author. These schemes intended for linguistic purposes are of course not designed for practical or "popular" use. For one thing they usually involve diacritical signs and symbols some of which are beyond the resources of normal typography; but they do at least show a degree of accuracy and regu- larity which (while some critics may disagree with certain particulars) cannot offend the intelligent and discerning reader as do many of the well-meaning but deplorable follies of "popular" usage.

It is arguable that no one system of transliteration can ever satisfy the needs both of the linguist or specialist and of the "man in the street". It is indeed probable that each new linguist or phonetician who enters the field will, as in the past, regard himself as entitled, like his predecessors, to invent his own system, to the resigned exasperation of his fellow éthiopisants - though his new scheme may be in fact only a fresh combination of devices which are already familiar. The system described in the present article has no ambition of satisfying every linguist, Ethiopian and foreign; it is designed primarily for consistent use in the Journal of Ethiopian Studies, and it attempts to meet the requirements of the average reader (that blessed abstraction) while giving no offence (except in so far as it is yet another system) to the linguists. Natu- rally it would be most gratifying if it could come to be regarded as the standard means of transliteration for names of persons and places, and of such words as cannot be translated - words relating to land tenure, for example, units of measurement, artifacts peculiar to the country and so forth. Quite apart from éthiopisants there can be few people, Ethiopians as well as foreigners, who have regular contact with transliterations of Ethiopian words, for whont the present chaotic situation is not a source of inconvenience and dismay.

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Where this Journal is concerned, however, it might be asked, why transli- rate at all? A large number of readers will be familiar with the Ethiopian script, it is true, and would probably prefer to see words in the original spelling; but there are many others to whom incomprehensible signs would be a source of irritation and confusion. The best line to take seems to be a transliteration which is immediately pronounceable, by any intelligent reader, with a fair degree of accuracy, and at the same time can be converted back into the Ethiopian original with virtually "foolproof" precision. The recognised phonetic principle of "one sign, one sound" is of course observed, though it must be remembered that since each Ethiopian character represents as a rule a syllable rather than a letter in the European sense, it is represented in transliteration normally by two letters of the roman alphabet, a consonant and a vowel.

It is to be hoped that proposals for an improved system of transliteration will not be interpreted as a tacit suggestion that the Ethiopian script should be modified, or possibly discarded altogether as a long-term policy. Such ideas are unfortunately adumbrated from time to time, the example of modern Turkish script sometimes being adduced - a completely false analogy. For one thing, the existing Ethiopian script has an ingenuity and practical utility which make it an admirable vehicle for exhibiting and elucidating the etymological structure of the languages which employ it; any inconsistencies that have

appeared are due to phonetic developments which the Ethiopian Cadmus could

hardly have foreseen. For another, not less significant of the country's genius, it is, when well executed, one of the most pleasing, from the aesthetic point of view, modes of writing in the world. To-day, unfortunately, the hand-

writing of Ethiopians has deteriorated badly; compared with any good manu-

script written before about 1750, the splotchy productions of present-day scribes display a sorry picture of dignity degenerating into pompous clumsiness, lucidity neglected in favour of alledgedly time-saving scrawls, grace sacri- ficed to pathetic attempts to be "modern". As for the everyday handwriting of most Ethiopians, it is nearly always hideous. Oood handwriting is rarely taught in schools, more attention being paid nowadays to the acquiring of a

legible English hand than to the development of a shapely Amharic one. In consequence, it is most unusual to find among schoolchildren one who can write an Amharic script which is not virtually indecipherable and an offence to the eye. Higher education inevitably produces a still greater sub- servience to English writing and a further neglect of the Amharic script No

compensation is to be found in the Amharic typewriters so far manufactured; apart from the obvious advantage of providing duplicated copies, they have

nothing to recomrriend them, being difficult to operate, and producing a

typescript that is extremely troublesome and confusing to read, as well ugly and characterless.

Happily the printing types at present in use, both in Ethiopia and abroad, preserve the dignity and clarity of hands of the best periods - largely thanks to

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the tradition established by d'Abbadie's designs for the founts at the Imprimerie Nationale in Paris. One matter is however to be deplored: the fashion is becoming widespread in the Addis Ababa presses of neglecting to print the näteb (the colon-like dividing sign) between words. Besides depriving the script of a highly characteristic feature, this omission shows a failure to appreciate the advantage of the possibility - even more welcome, one would have thought, to typesetters than to scribes - of ending lines at any point within a word without the need of a hyphen; for if the näteb occurs, the word is clearly complete, but if not, we know that we must proceed to the next line before reaching the end of the word. More important than this technical simplification for typesetter or scribe, regular use of the näteb makes reading much easier, especially for persons who have had little or no formal education. It would seem somewhat inconsistent to set much store by the elimination of ¡illiteracy while a potential factor in aiding its acceleration is carelessly abandoned. Abolition of the näteb from the newspapers is particularly regrettable; even headlines in large type are often an incomprehensible jumble of letters which educated Ethiopians find difficulty in deciphering. Incidentally, one newspaper has taken the retrograde step of printing its name in a weird pseudo-gothic Aniharic type. It is remarkable that Ethiopia, while "modernizing" out of existence useful and pleasant archaisms of her own, should seek to replace them by importing tiresome and outmoded ones from Europe.

«•»••♦•••••

Here follows the scheme of transliteration devised for use in this Journal - and recommended for general use, except by linguists who are more concerned with phonetic values than with the Ethiopian script as actually employed.

Diacritical marks have been confined as far as possible to signs already in use on many typewriters and available in many type founts. Particular modifi- cations of letters, such as are included in phonetic alphabets for non-European languages (X, 3, 3 etc.) have been avoided; although some are useful for Ethiopian languages they are irreproducible mechanically, besides being somewhat "off-putting" to the lay reader. Palatalized consonants are generally distinguished by the "háček" (v); the use of two letters (sh, zh etc.) would be ambiguous. The "explosive" or "globalized" ( as they have been called ) consonants are usually represented here by a dot under the corresponding "ordinary" letter; the method sometimes adopted of an apostrophe after the "ordinary" letter is both ambiguous (since the apostrophe might represent a "breathed" semi-consonant before the following vowel) and phonetically inaccurate, since these consonants are quite distinct from the "ordinary" ones = not merely the "ordinary" sound followed by a glottal stop.

It must be stressed again that this is a system of transliteration of the Ethiopian script and not necessarily a phonetic transcription of Aniharic and other Ethiopian languages. With the aid of the summary key printed in each issue of this Journal it should be possible to convert the words back into their original spellings in Ethiopian script - as some khiopisants may often wish to



do - with reasonable accuracy. To non-expert readers the transliteration gives a close approximation to the actual sound of a word, especially for English -

speakers. Since English is the official second language of Ethiopia, it seems only reasonable that the long-established principle should, in the main be followed of "consonants as in English, vowels as in Italian" - English treat- ment of vowels being notoriously chaotic.

The consonants will be treated first. For these the "ge'ez" (first) form of each will be shown, though of course in each case it would actually be transliterated by the consonant followed by the first-form vowel (which will be discussed later).

Ih th, 'h Since in Amharic all these three are now pronounced the same (and are vulgarly interchangeable) they are represented indifferently as h. In Ge'ez, however, where there are morphological distinctions, and in Tegreñfia, which retains differences of pronounciation, the accepted h for fh and h for -1 may be used.

A 1

ao m. The substitution of 9° for 7 before (| is regarded as a normal phenomenon, and where it occurs will be transliterated m. (9°ļh is rendered mt; an interpolated p is unjustified, even if it is sometimes heard: Tekempt for ťÝ/1!*. as used by the Ethiopian Herald, and similar solecisms, are to be deplored.

Both, as s; except that when a distinction is desirable to differentiate between two Ge'ez words u* may be rendered á.

¿ r.

îf š; pronounced like English sb, German sch, French ch.

+ q, which is more familiar than ķ. The Tegreñña sp is rendered q,

ÍI b. ii v.

+ t.

SfS č; pronounced like English ch, German tsch.

V n.

•y ñ; for the palatalized n the tilde is more familiar than the háček used with c, s, and z.

0, fa Not represented when occurring (as is most usual, at least in Amharic) at the beginning of a word; otherwise both are represented by an apostrophe ('). When it is necessary to differentiate, A is the "smooth breathing" ('), p the "rough breathing" (').

h k.

•fi In the first ("ge'ez") form, h; in the other forms (which rarely occur), x (to be pronounced approximately like the Scotch or German ch).

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at w. id* as the second vowel of a diphthong is equally represented by w.

H z-

Tf ž; pronounced like s in pleasure or the French j.

f y. J6 as the second vowel of a diphthong is equally represented by y.

f. d. The sign £, occasionally used for the Galleñña "cerebral d", is represented by d.

% j. Linguists frequently prefer ģ for this sound - for which, as a palatalized voiced dental, H would be more logical - as indeed would ï than Č; in his Semitic Languages of Ethiopia Ullendorff does actually use ï and 3. The sounds of g add j are admittedly closely related (not least in English); in Ethiopian languages one may cite the alternative pronunciations and spellings of, inter alia, Amba Alagi (or - ji), Nagran (Najran). Since the letter j is available, however, it seems only reasonable to employ it, and avoid a diacritical mark.

? g-

m t.

CO, č; palatalized t, forming an "explosive" eh sound.

ft P-

X. 0 Both are represented by s, since nowadays they are identical in sound, and usually interchangeable. When a distinction is desirable to differentiate between two Ge'ez words, $ may be rendered z.

¿ f.

T P-

The "u-containing gutturals" («fe, -V», h», » should ideally be represented by qw, hw, kw, gw, but the use of a small w in this position may not always be

typographically possible; but a full-size w (qw, hw, kw, gw) will be adequate. (Nowadays certain forms of these letters are frequently used in place of the

ordinary second and seventh forms of the basic letter; this will be discussed in the section on vocalization which follows.)

The series of letters o., a & etc. are regarded for purposes of transliteration as though they were written fiļ*p, fV, tlV, etc. (i. e. lwa, mwa, swa etc.)

Of the seven vowel forms, the second (ka'eb) and the seventh (sab'e) are open to little question where transliteration is concerned: the second is

u, the seventh o. We are thus left with three European vowel letters, a, e, i, to serve the five remaining Ethiopian vowel forms. Clearly, therefore, two of the three will have to do double duty - without and with some diacritical

sign. We are not unaccustomed to seeing such signs on a and e: e is used in French with three different accents; a is used with the circumflex in

French, with the grave in Italian, and with the "umlaut" in German. But i,

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apart from its normal "dot", rarely bears any diacritical mark - in English, French and German never, and in Italian it only very occasionally has a grave accent. For the third (sales) vowel i is the obvious choice; the only other for which it might be used (and has been, for instance by Armbruster - with an uncomfortbale little circle beneath) is the sixth (sades); but for sades e is on the whole preferable. (Admittedly one or two common words look rather odd (f°7 - men, h - sent), but this is as a rule because the transliteration happens to result in words equally common - though of different meaning - in English.) When there is no perceptible vowel sound following the consonant, sades is not vocalized at all in transliteration. There is however another vowel form for which e is required - the fifth (hames)' for this a diacritical sign will be necessary, and the acute accent (é) seems the most appropriate and convenient. (It is not thought necessary to indicate the slight y sound often heard preceding é nor the slight w preceding o; these are entirely phonetic phenomena, and vary very much according to the speaker and to circumstances: bit for instance, may be heard as (to use "popular" English spelling) bate or at the other extreme as bisyllabic bee-ate; the w before o is rarely more clear than the corresponding Italian u in buono.)

We are now left with two Ethiopian vowel forms to be considered: the first (ge'ez) and the fourth (rab'e). Rab'e is generally reckoned as essentially an a sound - and no purpose is served by giving this a any diacritical mark. Last, and most controversial, is ge'ez. It is generally recognized by linguists that this too is basically an a sound - the simplest utterance of the human voice, which doubtless accounts for its primary position in the Ethiopian vocalization scheme, just as it does for its beginning (through Hebrew aleph and Greek alpha) the alphabets of a great part of the world. Moreover, with five consonants - the three varieties of h and the two "breathings" (not consonants at all in the popular sense of the word) - ge'ez is still pronounced as a pure a, identical now with the fourth (rab'e) form vowel, with which it is frequently inter- changed in writing.' It seems probable, on historical and phonetic grounds alike, that the original pronunciation of ge'ez was an a rather shorter than the present sound of rab'e - which was perhaps somewhat longer than it is to-day. But, apart from the five just mentioned, all the consonants have in the course of time developed - with some variations resulting from their individual phonetic influences - a "lazy" indeterminate sound for ge'ez: usually that of the English a in alone, machine, formula.2

1. There would seem to be no reason, linguistic or otherwise, why in current script the rab* e forms of "7 and 0 are preferred to the ge'ez (;}, «V rather than *>, o), while with and h these ge'ez forms alone are regularly seen; (#h and ' are almost entirely confined to Tegreñña, which is more sensitive to subtleties in laryngal sounde, and adopted the Ethiopian script only recently.) In the case of o, ge'ez and rab'e are used indiscriminately, with perhaps a slight preference for V

2. The fact that there is no form of the five exceptional consonants which represents this new ge'ez sound has led to the use, on the rare occasions when it is necessary, of for h followed by ge'ez, X (a neologistic symbol) for ge'ez without a preceding consonant in the same word.



In the romance languages the sound of a did not degenerate, as it often did in the germanio, towards on e; therefore this Amharic corruption of an original a seemed to French and Italian ears more akin to (and more suitably represented by) an e mute; and since it was mostly through French and Italian writers that Europeans became first acquainted with Ethiopian names and words, e became the commonest transliteration of the ge'ez vowel - in "popular" circles at least; linguists, even French and Italian ones, did not always fall into this misleading error: Cohen and Guidi both represent ge'ez by a with a transverse bar (■*■); Conti Rossini uses a in his Grammatica elementare della Lingua etiopica (sc. Ge'ez); but in his Lingua tigrina, a popular manual, lapses into e, in conformity with similar works by missionaries and others, both on Tegreñtía and on Amharic (Baeteman, Bevilacqua, Ca vallera, Da Offeio, Ignesti, Piccirilli, Ronciglione and others). Mondon Vidailhet uses a; and we are not surprised that the Germans Dillmann and Praetorius do the same. As to the English, Armbruster uses a with his little circle under it - not very elegant, and typographically difficult; of two "popular" manuals the earlier, Alone, later revised by Stokes, uses a for ge'ez, S for rab'e, while Abraham follows the Italians and has e for ge'ez • Unfortunately a kind of spurious "authority" has been given for this misguided use of e by two Ethiopians who have written Amharic grammars in Italian: "G.J. Afevork" (really Afä-Wärq Gäbrä-Iyäsus) and "P. Agostino da Hebo". It is a pleasant relief to look at the unpretentious Dizionario pratico e frasario per conversazione italiano-amarica (1937) of Fusella and Girace, which uses ¿-but they were students at the Istituto Superiore Orientale of Naples and worked under expert guidance. More recently, Leslau and Ullendorff have each adopted a; and this is the usage we are retaining here. It must be admitted that many people, both Ethiopians and foreigners, may find it hard to adapt themselves to d instead of the comfortably ambiguous e. But the ultimate advantages are unquestionable: we shall be spared such deplorabliities as Gebriel (or Ghebriel or Guebriel), Habteweld (or Haptewold), Addis Abeba1 - so far, inconsistently, we have not met "Asmera". Even without the "umlaut" mark a cannot lead to so much confusion and inaccuracy in pronunciation as e' a is more likely to lapse into the actual sound of the ge'ez vowel (after all this is precisely what has happened) than is e, which is more liable to become very much "closed" and far from the real ge'ez sound.

Before leaving the subject of vowels, we should note the modern habit -

arising from an imperfect conception of the nature and function of the "u- eontaining gutturals" - of confounding the ge'ez and sades forms of the latter

1. Or even Addis Abeba. Many French people could not believe in "Abeba" (with a mute e) so "corrected" it by inserting an acute accent, thus perverting the true pronunciation and stress for most of the world - the Italians never questioned it, and adopted Addis Abeba as their official spelling. It is not uncommon to hear even Ethiopians pronouce it in this way - though we never see h fl»n written. (Many Ethiopians however adopt the tiresome solecism * Addis" - which is as fatuous as if the Americans referred to their chief city as "New".)

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with the sab'e ( o ) and ka'eb («) forms respectively of the basic consonant: £ with 7" with ■) (this very common) etc., and with <|i, jf. with )|> etc. Where there is a clear etymological argument for one or the other in any particular word, we shall, unless the text is linguistically- important, correct the spelling before transliterating; otherwise we shall represent the word as stands - even reproducing kwäkäb (for kokab) and quter (for qweter) if they are so spelt.

There remains the question of tebq (as opposed to let) consonants. Nowa- days phoneticians are fond of interpreting tebq as "geminated"; the more popular manuals have always used the less pretentious expression "doubled". But neither word adequately describes the phenomenon, wherein the consonant is "strengthened" or "dwelt upon" rather than repeated: Armbruster's example of the sound of f in "off fur" as compared with "offer" is a good illustration. 1 It is true that a lei consonant often becomes tebq through the "assimilation" of a prefix, much as in Latin prepositions affixed to verbs have produced doubled consonants in the script of many derived languages - in English we are familiar with the types assign, illicit, pellucid, which we pronounce as though there were no doubling. In Amharic the opposite phenomenon occurs: the consonant becomes tebq, but there is no indication in the script - which is admittedly something of a defect. In transliterating we have to adopt, faute de mieux, the long-standing convention of doubling, which is ambiguous, if not incorrect; however, should a consonant in the sades form be immediately followed by the same consonant (in whatever form), an e will always be inserted (as is indeed invariably heard). Thus semment repesents ftfļt (the 9" being tebq), while semem is {l9°9°¡ and Mäkwännenenna (in which the first f and the final Ç are both tebq, the intermediate "> being let).

One final reservation as regards the scheme as a whole. Several place and personal names have by now received conventional (albeit often inaccurate) spellings in roman script which it might seem presumptuous or pedantic to transliterate more precisely. These spellings will therefore be retained, but will normally be printed in roman type - as will correct transliterations of familiar names when they do not diverge widely from accepted spellings. Other- wise all precise transliterations (including names) will be printed in italic type. Thus we retain Shoa (Säwa), Addis Ababa (Addis Abäba), Dessie (Dâsé), Asmara (Asmara), Massawa (Metwa or Mesiva), Haile Sellassie Hay Id- Sellase ) Imru (Emmern) and a few other well-known names; Menilek will be given this correct vocalization, but will not be italicized.

It can scarcely be expected that the proposals described above, and put into effect in this Journal, will meet with universal acceptance or approval.

1. Dawkins, in The Foundamentals of Amharic (Addis Ababa, 1960), gives some further instancei of this kind.

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Comment is invited from every source - enterprises in Ethiopia (governmental, diplomatic, cultural, commercial); éthiopisants of every shade (linguists, historians, theologians, economists, amateurs); persons everywhere who are concerned with the theory or practice of translation or transliteration. Comments will be welcomed whether they are severely critical or benevolent or neither or both; they should be addressed to the Editors, and it would be helpful if an indication were given whether or not publication (verbatim or by quotation or reference) is permitted, anonymously or otherwise. If they are of real value and interest the present writer will ask the Editors to allot space in a subse- quent issue for reasoned replies.

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The Transliteration of Amharic

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