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69-601: The Ethiopian Navy ( Amharic : የኢትዮጵያ ባህር ኃይል , romanized :  ye’ītiyop’iya baḥiri ḫayil ), known as the Imperial Ethiopian Navy until 1974, is the naval branch of the Ethiopian National Defense Force founded in 1955. It was disestablished in 1996 after the independence of Eritrea in 1993, which left Ethiopia landlocked. However, the Ethiopian Navy was re-established in 2019 as

138-674: A brown water navy and is based in Lake Tana in Bahir Dar , Amhara region . Ethiopia regained a coastline and ports and army on the Red Sea in 1950 when the United Nations decided to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia. In 1955, the Imperial Ethiopian Navy was founded, and its first (and primary) base was established at Massawa in 1956. The navy took delivery of its first ship in 1957. By

207-477: A folk hero . In 1962, the United States transferred the former seaplane tender USS  Orca  (AVP-49) to Ethiopia; renamed Ethiopia (A-01) and placed in service as a training ship , she was the Ethiopian Navy ' s largest ship throughout her 31 years of service. The Imperial Ethiopian Navy established four bases: Massawa was the site of the naval headquarters and enlisted training facilities;

276-513: A holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide. Early Afro-Asiatic populations speaking proto- Semitic , proto- Cushitic and proto- Omotic languages would have diverged by the fourth or fifth millennium BC. Shortly afterwards, the proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic groups would have settled in the Ethiopian highlands, with the proto-Semitic speakers crossing

345-513: A pidgin as early as the 4th century AD to enable communication between Aksumite soldiers speaking Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages, but this hypothesis has not garnered widespread acceptance. The preservation in Old Amharic of VSO word order and gutturals typical of Semitic languages, Cushitic influences shared with other Ethio-Semitic languages (especially those of the Southern branch), and

414-502: A scimitar , struck the officer, and shouted imprecations against Italy and the Duce , while praising the Negus (Ethiopian monarch). During the confrontation, Zerai injured Italian Railways private Vincenzo Veglia, State employee Ferdinando Peraldi, and Infantry Chief Marshal Mario Izzo, who reported very slight wounds that healed within 12 days. According to other reports, some passersby, including

483-676: A butcher's boy who hurled his bicycle at the Eritrean, were also injured. Finally, two soldiers ended the attack with gunfire, shooting Zerai four times. Zerai was wounded in the thigh. For political reasons, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was planning to repatriate the Abyssinian aristocrats not welcome in Rome to Ethiopia. (By July 1939 only one out of ninety of the detainees remained in Rome). That plan suddenly accelerated when on June 15, 1938, Mussolini

552-533: A coastal defense brigade equipped with two truck-mounted P-15 Termit ( USDoD designation "SSC-3"; NATO reporting name "Styx") coastal defense antiship cruise missile launchers. Eritrean opposition to Eritrea ' s inclusion in Ethiopia broke out in a full-scale rebellion after the Derg took power in 1974, and this left the Ethiopian Navy in the difficult position of having all of its bases deep in rebel territory and on

621-724: A failed assassination attempt on Rodolfo Graziani , the Viceroy of Italian East Africa and appointed Governor-General of Shewa during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. In return, under carte blanche permission from the Federal Secretary Guido Cortese, many Italian civilians, members of the military, and the paramilitary forces known as the Blackshirts conducted a three-day bloody reprisal in Addis Ababa . Known in Ethiopia as

690-591: A former U.S. Navy PC-1604 -class submarine chaser donated by the United States Army in 1956, was christened Zerai Deres . A Soviet -made Petya-class frigate was also dedicated to the Eritrean patriot; it was launched in 1968 and sank in February 1991 near the island of Nocra . The square where the Asmara 's central post office and National Bank of Eritrea (former Palace of National Bank of Italy) are located

759-730: Is a South Ethio-Semitic language, along with Gurage , Argobba , Harari , and others. Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Ethio-Semitic language and eventually absorbed the Semitic population. Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum . The northernmost South Ethio-Semitic speakers, or the proto-Amhara, remained in constant contact with their North Ethio-Semitic neighbors, evidenced by linguistic analysis and oral traditions. A 7th century southward shift of

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828-796: Is an Ethiopian Semitic language , which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages . It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas , and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns in Ethiopia . The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions . As of 2020, it has over 33,700,000 mother-tongue speakers and more than 25,100,000 second language speakers in 2019, making

897-571: Is an abugida , and the graphemes of the Amharic writing system are called fidäl . It is derived from a modification of the Ge'ez script . Each character represents a consonant+vowel sequence, but the basic shape of each character is determined by the consonant, which is modified for the vowel. Some consonant phonemes are written by more than one series of characters: / ʔ / , / s / , / tsʼ / , and / h / (the last one has four distinct letter forms). This

966-423: Is avenged!" before being arrested or killed by the fascists on the spot in a hail of gunfire. In the 1950s various historical theatrical plays were written in Ethiopia about the Italian invasion. Among these works, Ateneh Alemu wrote a play about Zerai Deres in 1956–1957. In the 1970s, the story of the Eritrean patriot was rewritten by Ethiopian comedian Yilma Manaye in his work Zeraye Derese . This character

1035-658: Is because these fidäl originally represented distinct sounds, but phonological changes merged them. The citation form for each series is the consonant+ ä form, i.e. the first column of the fidäl . The Amharic script is included in Unicode , and glyphs are included in fonts available with major operating systems. As in most other Ethiopian Semitic languages , gemination is contrastive in Amharic. That is, consonant length can distinguish words from one another; for example, alä 'he said', allä 'there is'; yǝmätall 'he hits', yǝmmättall 'he will be hit'. Gemination

1104-493: Is called an abugida ( አቡጊዳ ). The graphemes are called fidäl ( ፊደል ), which means "script", "alphabet", "letter", or "character". There is no universally agreed-upon Romanization of Amharic into Latin script . The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specializing in Ethiopian Semitic languages. Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia, language of

1173-551: Is in Africa.' ልጁ Lǝǧ-u the boy ተኝቷል täññǝtʷall. asleep is ልጁ ተኝቷል Lǝǧ-u täññǝtʷall. {the boy} {asleep is} 'The boy is asleep.' ( -u is a definite article. Lǝǧ is 'boy'. Lǝǧu is 'the boy') አየሩ Ayyäru the weather ደስ däss pleasant Zerai Deres Zerai Deres was born in the kebele of Adihiyis, in the province of Serae , in Italian Eritrea in 1915 (or 1908, according to

1242-469: Is mostly heard as the affricate sound [ t͡sʼ ]. The rhotic consonant is realized as a trill when geminated and a tap otherwise. The closed central unrounded vowel ⟨ə⟩ /ɨ/ and mid-central vowel ⟨ä⟩ /ə/ are generally fronted to [ ɪ ] and [ ɛ ], respectively, following palatal consonants , and generally retracted and rounded to [ ʊ ] and [ ɔ ], respectively, following labialized velar consonants . The Amharic script

1311-416: Is not indicated in Amharic orthography, but Amharic readers typically do not find this to be a problem. This property of the writing system is analogous to the vowels of Arabic and Hebrew or the tones of many Bantu languages , which are not normally indicated in writing. Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu , who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform , indicated gemination in his novel Love to

1380-464: The 1974 Ethiopian Revolution , the Derg regime planned to remove the statue as a monarchic symbol. However, senior members of the war veterans association lobbied for the statue to remain as a symbol of Zerai Deres' sacrifice on behalf of antifascism. The Derg agreed to this request to save the statue, which stands in the Addis Ababa railway station square today. The Ethiopian Navy 's first military ship,

1449-657: The Ethiopian calendar ). At the age of two, his father died and the family moved to Hazega , the village of his mother's origin. Zerai was a member of the Tigrinya ethnic group. He converted to Catholicism and attended Italian colonial schools, including the seminary of the Capuchin friars in Segeneiti . For this reason, he spoke the Italian language fluently. Abandoning his studies in

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1518-694: The Italian Naval Academy in Livorno , Italy, while others attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis , Maryland . By 1958, the Imperial Ethiopian Navy had 129 personnel, increasing to 1,200 in 1970. At its peak, the Imperial Ethiopian Navy had a force of 11,500 personnel. All enlisted men served seven-year enlistments as volunteers. The navy operated a mix of patrol boats , torpedo boats , and small submersible boats transferred from

1587-623: The Ogaden War of 1978, and Mengistu increasingly began to divert resources from the navy to the Ethiopian Army and Ethiopian Air Force . As a result, the Ethiopian Navy began to decline further in its capabilities. The Ethiopian Navy lost both its main port and its highway connection to the Ethiopian interior when the EPLF captured Massawa during the Second Battle of Massawa in February 1990, forcing

1656-471: The Sinai Peninsula into Asia . A later return movement of peoples from South Arabia would have introduced the Semitic languages to Ethiopia. Based on archaeological evidence, the presence of Semitic speakers in the territory date to some time before 500 BC. Linguistic analysis suggests the presence of Semitic languages in Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC. Levine indicates that by the end of that millennium,

1725-460: The United States Navy and the navies of European countries. The Imperial Ethiopian Navy ' s first ship was a former U.S. Navy PC-1604 -class submarine chaser , ex- USS  PC-1616 , transferred to Ethiopia on 2 January 1957 via a loan scheme involving Italy and transferred to Italy on 3 May 1959. The Ethiopian ship was named after Zerai Deres , famous national patriot considered

1794-591: The Yekatit 12 massacre , it resulted in the killing of thousands of people and arrests of many Amhara aristocratic noblemen, about 400 of whom were subsequently deported to Rome, Longobucco , Mercogliano , Ponza , Tivoli , and Asinara , Italy. In order to manage the deportation, the Italian Ministry of the Colonies hired many people, including Zerai Deres as a translator for Ethiopian nobles deported to Italy. At

1863-504: The total number of speakers over 58,800,000. Amharic is the largest, most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo ). Amharic is also the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic ). Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script . The segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units

1932-516: The 1980s. In visual arts , the patriot was the subject of sculptures, including that of Tadesse Mamecha made in 1971. The Zerai Deres Band has been a popular Eritrean jazz and folk music band since the 1970s. In 1966, when the sculpture of the Lion of Judah was returned to Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Selassie recalled Zerai's patriotic gesture during the re-appointment ceremony held in Addis Ababa. After

2001-450: The EPLF captured Asmara and surrounded Assab, where fire from its ground forces sank seven Ethiopian Navy ships in port. On 25 May 1991, the 14 Ethiopian Navy ships capable of putting to sea fled Assab, ten of them steaming to Yemen and the others to Saudi Arabia, leaving behind seven ships and a variety of small craft. Assab fell to the EPLF soon after. The Ethiopian Civil War and Eritrean War of Independence both ended in 1991 soon after

2070-438: The Ethiopian Navy ceased to exist. Its only remnant was the patrol boat GB-21 ; moved inland to Lake Tana and manned by Ethiopian Army personnel, she survived as of 2009 as Ethiopia ' s only military watercraft. In June 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called for the eventual reconstitution of the Ethiopian Navy as part of a wider program of security sector reforms, saying that "we should build our naval force capacity in

2139-559: The Ethiopian Navy had two frigates , eight missile craft, six torpedo craft, six patrol boats, two amphibious craft, and two support and training craft, mostly of Soviet origin. After the Derg seized power, the navy ' s six UH-1 helicopters were transferred to the Ethiopian Air Force . At some point, the post-Imperial navy reportedly acquired two Soviet-made—perhaps Mil Mi-8 ( NATO reporting name "Hip") or Mil Mi-14 (NATO reporting name "Haze")—helicopters. The navy also operated

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2208-873: The Ethiopian Navy—no longer "Imperial"—was reoriented toward the Soviet Union . Officers continued to train in Ethiopia, but selected naval officers continued their studies at the Soviet naval academy in Leningrad and at Baku . After the Soviet Union changed their alliance from Somalia to Ethiopia in the Ogaden War in 1978, it established naval bases at Assab and on the Dahlak Islands and began to base Soviet Naval Aviation aircraft at Asmara International Airport ; in addition, Soviet naval personnel took posts as instructors at

2277-562: The Ethiopian naval academy. Enlisted men continued to train at Massawa and served a seven-year enlistment. In 1982, the Ethiopian Navy had about 1,500 personnel. The turn to the Soviet Union meant that the navy became a largely Soviet-equipped force. Although Ethiopia continued in her role as a training ship and remained Ethiopia's largest naval vessel, the United States ceased arms sales to Ethiopia in 1977, and Soviet-built patrol boats and missile boats began to replace other ships. By 1991,

2346-463: The Ethiopianist tradition they are often transcribed with a dot below the letter. The notation of central vowels in the Ethiopianist tradition is shown in angled brackets. The voiced bilabial plosive /b/ is phonetically realized as a voiced labial approximant [β̞] medially between sonorants in non- geminated form. The fricative ejective / sʼ / is heard as a fricative ejective [ sʼ ], but

2415-615: The Ethiopians left them behind in Yemen. Ethiopia had become a hulk after arriving in Yemen in 1991 and was sold for scrap in 1993; other Ethiopian ships were also scrapped or scuttled. Those ships which could get underway from Yemen in 1993 moved to Djibouti. For a time it was thought that the Ethiopian Navy might survive, based at Assab in Eritrea or at Djibouti, and Ethiopia even requested that Eritrea lease it pier space at Assab from which to operate

2484-519: The Grave by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice is rare. Punctuation includes the following: One may construct simple Amharic sentences by using a subject and a predicate . Here are a few simple sentences: ኢትዮጵያ ʾItyop̣p̣ya Ethiopia አፍሪካ ʾAfrika Africa ውስጥ wǝsṭ in ናት nat is ኢትዮጵያ አፍሪካ ውስጥ ናት ʾItyop̣p̣ya ʾAfrika wǝsṭ nat {Ethiopia} {Africa} {in} {is} 'Ethiopia

2553-454: The Lion of Judah to which his ancestors swore allegiance, Zerai would have been struck by a sudden amok or impetus of anti-colonial patriotism, deciding to stop at the steps, kneel, and pray towards the statue-symbol; or, with a sudden feeling of anger, he would hit with a sword the first Italian to cross his path. According to other sources, Zerai killed at least five people, as well as wounded others, screaming words like "The Lion of Judah

2622-627: The age of 23, Zerai arrived in Rome in the summer of 1937 shortly after the arrival of the first Ethiopian deportees. During his stay in the Italian capital, Zerai closely followed the events of the colonial war with a growing sense of anger and helplessness in the face of news coming from Ethiopia, and translated for the Abyssinian Ras the news reported by the Italian press. On June 15, 1938, shortly before his planned return to his homeland, Zerai went to Princess of Piedmont Boulevard (now Luigi Einaudi Boulevard) during lunchtime and knelt at

2691-644: The age of 30, on July 6, 1945. Zerai's brother Tesfazien, founder of the Eritrea Independent Party, thinking that Zerai was still alive in an Italian prison in Italy, wrote a personal letter to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie asking to provide an airplane to Italy in order to bring his brother home. Tesfazien also approached the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambaye Wolde Mariam to present

2760-449: The alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language. There are 34 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable. There are also 49 "wa" letters, which form compound sounds involving "w." All together, the alphabet has some 280 letters. Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia. The 2007 census reported that Amharic

2829-650: The case to the Imperial Palace, initially without success. Finally, Tesfazien reached Zerai in Sicily in July 1939, but he could do nothing to get his brother free from the asylum. After Zerai's death in 1945, Tesfazien was able after a long struggle to repatriate his brother's remains to Eritrea. Zerai was buried in St. Mary's Church in Hazega, in front of which stands a monument depicting

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2898-527: The center of gravity of the Kingdom of Aksum and the ensuing integration and Christianization of the proto-Amhara also resulted in a high prevalence of Geʽez sourced lexicon in Amharic. Some time after the 9th century AD, Amharic diverged from its closest relative, Argobba , probably due to religious differences as the Argobba adopted Islam. In 1983, Lionel Bender proposed that Amharic may have been constructed as

2967-483: The character, until he became a national folk hero in both Ethiopia and Eritrea, a status he retains to this day. Among the various reconstructions, there is one that sets the story during a celebratory event of the second anniversary of the announcement of the Italian empire (although the Italian empire's proclamation that made Ethiopia part of Italian East Africa was annually celebrated a month earlier, on May 9). The young Eritrean would have been chosen to take part in

3036-493: The core inhabitants of Greater Ethiopia would have consisted of dark-skinned agropastoralists speaking Afro-Asiatic languages of the Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic branches. Other scholars such as Messay Kebede and Daniel E. Alemu argue that migration across the Red Sea was defined by reciprocal exchange, if it even occurred at all, and that Ethio-Semitic-speaking ethnic groups should not be characterized as foreign invaders. Amharic

3105-566: The courts, the language of trade and everyday communications and of the military since the late 12th century. The Amhara nobles supported the Zagwe prince Lalibela in his power struggle against his brothers which led him to make Amharic Lessana Negus as well as fill the Amhara nobles in the top positions of his Kingdom. The appellation of "language of the king" ( Ge'ez : ልሳነ ነጋሢ ; "Lǝssanä nägaśi," Amharic : የነጋሢ ቋንቋ "Yä-nägaśi qʷanqʷa") and its use in

3174-567: The early 1960s, workshops and other facilities were under construction at Massawa to give it complete naval base capabilities. In 1958, the navy became a fully independent service, organized as one of the three Ethiopian armed services—alongside the Ethiopian Army and Ethiopian Air Force —under the overall command of the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Armed Forces. The navy's deputy commander had his naval headquarters in Addis Ababa . The navy

3243-629: The fact that they are Italian subjects. In Libya, Somalia and in the recent war against their homeland, in foreign struggles, they have shielded you with their bodies, and sometimes paid with their lives. I can assure you that it is no exaggeration to say that the natives provided you the means with which you could overcome. The misinterpretation of so many merits and acts of heroism carried out for Italy can only be indicative of an essentially alien and imperial government. Before departing to Italy, Zerai married in April 1937. On 19 February 1937, two Eritreans made

3312-426: The fall of Assab, and Eritrea became independent, leaving Ethiopia landlocked. The Ethiopian Navy remained in existence, left in the curious and unusual position of having no home ports. Nonetheless, directed by its headquarters in Addis Ababa, it continued occasional patrols in the Red Sea from ports in Yemen. In 1993, Yemen finally expelled the Ethiopian ships; by then some had deteriorated too much to be seaworthy, and

3381-594: The foot of the Monument to the Lion of Judah , a symbol of the Ethiopian monarchy. The sculpture had been brought to Rome as spoils of war by the Italian fascist regime in 1935, placed under the monument to the fallen of Battle of Dogali , and inaugurated on May 8, 1937, at the eve of celebrations for the first anniversary of the Italian Empire proclamation. As a small crowd gathered around Zerai, an Italian military officer tried to interrupt his devotions. Zerai pulled out

3450-667: The front line of the Eritrean War of Independence . In April 1977, the navy lost the Cape-class patrol boat P-11 , with reports blaming the loss both on a storm and on an attack by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) during the First Battle of Massawa . If she was lost to EPLF action, P-11 was the only Ethiopian Navy ship ever lost in combat. The Ethiopian Navy contributed nothing to Ethiopia ' s victory over Somalia in

3519-525: The future". In March 2019, Abiy Ahmed signed defense accords with France's Emmanuel Macron , including on support in establishing a naval component. The Ethiopian Navy is based in Djibouti, and its headquarters is in Bahir Dar , Ethiopia. Commander Philipos Kibret Amharic language Amharic ( / æ m ˈ h ær ɪ k / am- HARR -ik or / ɑː m ˈ h ɑːr ɪ k / ahm- HAR -ik ; native name : አማርኛ , romanized :  Amarəñña , IPA: [amarɨɲːa] )

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3588-422: The honorary title that Tesfazien had received from the Italian government. He wrote, "I'm fine. Always have been, and still am, in full possession of my mental faculties. I am in the Asylum only on account of government policy." According to the Italian historian Alessandro Triulzi , "The few letters he left behind bear witness to his lucidity." After seven years at Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto asylum, Zerai died at

3657-481: The late 1950s or early 1960s. Centers to provide enlisted men with training in technical specialities were established at Aseb , Asmara, and Massawa. Emperor Haile Selassie I appointed 25 Royal Norwegian Navy officers to help in organizing Ethiopia's new navy, and they oversaw much of the training. Retired British Royal Navy officers also served as trainers and advisers during Haile Selassie's reign. Some Imperial Ethiopian Navy officers received naval education at

3726-401: The military parade and carry a ceremonial sword that would have greeted the Italian king Vittorio Emanuele III , Adolf Hitler , and Benito Mussolini (although, as evidenced by the historical sources, none of the three were in Rome in those days, and in each case there was not any parade on June 15 in the capital city). Coming to the Piazza dei Cinquecento and recognizing the golden sculpture of

3795-475: The naval air station and naval academy were at Asmara; Assab was the site of a naval station, enlisted training facilities, and a repair dock; and there was a naval station and communications station on the Dahlak Islands in the Red Sea near Massawa. Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974, and during the Communist-run governments of the Provisional Military Administrative Council or Derg of 1974 to 1977 and of Mengistu Haile Mariam that followed from 1977 to 1991,

3864-455: The navy ' s headquarters to move inland to Addis Ababa. The Eritrean rebellion spread to the Dahlak Islands, where the EPLF damaged the Petya II-class frigate F-1616 beyond repair. EPLF successes left Ethiopian Navy bases increasingly isolated as 1990 wore on. By the spring of 1991, the navy ' s ships had begun to use ports in Djibouti , Saudi Arabia , and Yemen because of the danger of returning to their home bases. In late May 1991,

3933-420: The number of geographically distinct Cushitic languages that have influenced Amharic at different points in time (e.g. Oromo influence beginning in the 16th century) support a natural evolution of Amharic from a Proto-Ethio-Semitic language with considerable Cushitic influences (similar to Gurage, Tigrinya, etc.). The Amharic ejective consonants correspond to the Proto-Semitic " emphatic consonants ." In

4002-427: The patriot together with two lions. At the end of World War II, the story of Zerai Deres was rewritten, dramatized, and sung in Ethiopia to celebrate his anti-colonial resistance, especially by the pan-Ethiopian who opposed the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia. Zerai also became a hero of the antifascism movement. Due to the prevalence of oral tradition, numerous and even contradictory details went to enhance

4071-464: The remaining ships on 16 September 1996 and put them up for auction to pay the back dues. Eritrea expressed interest in 16 of them, but finally limited itself to purchasing only four of them—an Osa-II class missile boat and three Swiftships Shipbuilders patrol craft—in order to avoid exacerbating an international crisis with Yemen. The rest of the ships were scrapped. Later in 1996, the Ethiopian Navy ' s headquarters in Addis Ababa disbanded, and

4140-422: The royal court are otherwise traced to the Amhara Emperor Yekuno Amlak . It is one of the official languages of Ethiopia , together with other regions like Oromo , Somali , Afar , and Tigrinya . Amharic is an Afro-Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Geʽez , or Ethiopic, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church; Amharic is written in a slightly modified form of

4209-478: The seminary, Zerai became an interpreter in Rama , an Ethiopian town bordering present-day Eritrea. On October 6, 1936, Zerai Deres sent a letter to the editor of the Italian newspaper Corriere Eritreo who had written an editorial in which he had asked for the abolition of any form of promiscuity with the " natives ". Signing himself Un indigeno (Italian for "A native"), Zerai wrote: The natives, whose presence causes so much disgust to you, often take pride in

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4278-506: The surviving Ethiopian Navy. Eritrea refused the request. Proposals also were made for Eritrea and Ethiopia to divide the ships, with ships manned by both countries operating from Eritrean ports as a kind of successor to the Ethiopian Navy, but Eritrea soon expressed a desire to organize an entirely separate Eritrean Navy . By 1996, Djibouti was tired of having a foreign navy in its ports. The Ethiopian Navy had fallen behind in paying its harbor dues, and under this pretext Djibouti seized all of

4347-445: Was arrested, hospitalized at the Umberto I Policlynic , and then taken to Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto ( province of Messina , Sicily ) to the criminal asylum "Vittorio Madia". During his internment, Zerai repeatedly tried to prove his mental sanity, but he failed to convince the Italian doctors. He also wrote letters to his family: on December 3, 1938, Zerai stated he was in good health and asked his brother Tesfazien Deres to reject

4416-411: Was conceived and built as a coastal navy for patrolling the Red Sea coast. The Imperial Ethiopian Navy's personnel were among the best trained in the world. Even before Ethiopia took control of Eritrea, the British Royal Navy had seconded Ethiopian personnel to its bases in Eritrea to provide them with naval training. A naval college, where Ethiopian naval officers undertook a 52-month program of study,

4485-445: Was founded at Asmara in 1956; each class admitted averaged 30 to 40 students in size, and they graduated with a naval commission and a Bachelor of Science degree. In 1957, a Naval Non-Commissioned Officer School was established at Massawa as well. A Frogman / Diving School for the training of a special commando unit and a Ratings' Training Establishment for the training of naval enlisted men also were established at Massawa by

4554-412: Was informed that Zerai, who worked as an interpreter for the Ras confined in Rome, had shouted imprecations against Italy and praised Haile Selassie in front of the monument to the fallen of Dogali. Informed that some people had been severely wounded in attempting to silence Zerai, Mussolini become furious and ordered the total repatriation of all Ethiopian noblemen. However, the repatriation effort

4623-539: Was interpreted by Wegayehu Nigatu (1944–1990), a popular actor at the Ethiopian National Theater in Addis Ababa at the time. When the play was staged in Eritrea at Asmara's Opera , Wegayehu Nigatu's interpretation of Zerai was successfully received by the audience and his performance was so convincing that Tesfazien Deres wanted to host the actor for two weeks in order to have the opportunity to converse with him as with his dead brother. Ethiopian poet laureate Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin wrote an historical play about Zerai in

4692-415: Was slowed by the need to evaluate each case individually, as some Ethiopian dignitaries (including Ras Seyoum Mengesha , Ras Kebede Mengesha, Ras Mulugeta Yeggazu , and Degiac Asrate Mulughietà ) were suspected of inspiring Zerai's protest, and it was preferable to exile them in Libya or the Dodecanese . The episode was considered by the Italian authorities as an action of mental illness. Zerai

4761-409: Was spoken by 21.6 million native speakers in Ethiopia. More recent sources state the number of first-language speakers in 2018 as nearly 32 million, with another 25 million second-language speakers in Ethiopia. Additionally, 3 million emigrants outside of Ethiopia speak the language. Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic. Furthermore, Amharic is considered

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