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154-727: Oral history says the name Galamso came from the Oromo phrase Galma Usso , meaning the Hall of Usso or House of Usso , a mosque named for a man who came to preach Islam to the Ittu Oromos in the 13th century, called by his followers Aw Seid, and by the Oromos with his given name Usso after he was made ilma gossa or the adopted son of the Warra Qallu clan of the Ittu Oromo . As galma usually refers to

308-523: A Jebena (coffee pot) with boiling water. When ready it is then served to people in little cups, up to three times per ceremony. The ceremony is typically performed by the woman of the household, or the female host and is considered an honor. Amhara women dress up for the occasion in a kemis , a traditional dress. Other locally produced beverages are tella (beer) and tej (honey wine), which are served and drunk on major religious festivals, Saints Days and weddings. Mackonen Michael (2008) noted that

462-568: A Semitic -speaking ethnic group indigenous to Ethiopia , traditionally inhabiting parts of the northwest Highlands of Ethiopia , particularly inhabiting the Amhara Region . According to the 2007 national census, Amharas numbered 19,867,817 individuals, comprising 26.9% of Ethiopia's population, and they are mostly Oriental Orthodox Christian (members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ). They are also found within

616-499: A reciprocal pronoun wal (English 'each other') that is used like of/if . That is, it is inflected for case but not person, number, or gender: wal jaalatu 'they like each other' (base form of wal ), kennaa walii bitan 'they bought each other gifts' (dative of wal ). Like English, Oromo makes a two-way distinction between proximal ('this, these') and distal ('that, those') demonstrative pronouns and adjectives. Some dialects distinguish masculine and feminine for

770-420: A stem , representing the lexical meaning of the verb, and a suffix , representing tense or aspect and subject agreement. For example, in dhufne 'we came', dhuf- is the stem ('come') and -ne indicates that the tense is past and that the subject of the verb is first person plural. As in many other Afroasiatic languages , Oromo makes a basic two-way distinction in its verb system between

924-504: A Christian feudal culture, and by the adoption of Amharic , which from became the lingua franca . This population of a rather small province became the dominant group in the empire. Around this time, Medieval Arab historians state that Christian Ethiopia was under the sovereignty of "the Lord of Amhara" which confirms that the new Solomonic dynasty appears to be stock of the Bete Amhara in

1078-494: A fact that Ethiopian writers of the early 20th century like Aleqa Tayye had recorded. But the true urban feature of the town dates from Menelik's period. This will be agreeable when we know that in 1908, Gelemso was one of the few centers that the imperial government formally recognized as true towns. Gelemso stayed under a period of dwarfism and stagnancy in the reign of Ras Teferi Mekonnen (latter Emperor Haile Selassie I ) who had special sympathy for another town established in

1232-915: A hit in Ethiopia. To combat Somali wide-reaching influence, the Ethiopian Government initiated an Oromo language program radio of their own. Within Kenya there has been radio broadcasting in Oromo (in the Borana dialect) on the Voice of Kenya since at least the 1980s. The Borana Bible in Kenya was printed in 1995 using the Latin alphabet, but not using the same spelling rules as in Ethiopian Qubee. The first comprehensive online Oromo dictionary

1386-563: A language of administration within the region. Since the OLF left the transitional Ethiopian government in the early 1990s, the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization (OPDO) continued developing Oromo in Ethiopia. Radio broadcasts began in the Oromo language in Somalia in 1960 by Radio Mogadishu . The programme featured music and propaganda. A song Bilisummaan Aannaani (Liberation is Milk) became

1540-432: A lot in the details, but the following changes are common. Verbs whose stems end in two consonants and whose suffix begins with a consonant must insert a vowel to break up the consonants since the language does not permit sequences of three consonants. There are two ways this can happen: either the vowel i is inserted between the stem and the suffix, or the final stem consonants are switched (an example of metathesis ) and

1694-458: A means that enables him live in the land of the Oromos with full citizenship rights, which could be accessed under the tradition of the Oromo people at that time. Accordingly, he became ilma gosa or the adopted son of the Warra Qallu sub-group within the Ittu Oromo division of the Eastern Oromo, and on his adoption ceremony, the Oromos named him Usso . When Aw Seid built his mosque in

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1848-421: A place where once ruthless and contestant dictatorial queen called Akkoo Manoyye had built her palace), when we analyze its tie to Oda Bultum and the presence of the shrines of Aw-Seid both at Gelemso and Oda Bultum , we can deduce that Gelemso must had been a place of higher social and spiritual importance in the tradition of the Oromo people since ancient times. And to the least, we can say it existed on

2002-523: A rigid, endogamous and occupationally closed social stratification among the Amharas and other Afro-Asiatic-speaking Ethiopian ethnic groups. Some label it as an economically closed, endogamous class system with occupational minorities, whereas others such as David Todd assert that this system can be unequivocally labelled as caste-based. The Amhara speak " Amharic " (" Amarigna ", " Amarinya ") as their mother tongue . Its native speakers account for 29.3% of

2156-596: A stadium, youth recreation center, farmers training center and most notably, the Gelemso-Mechara high way. On the other hand, NGOs like CARE international highly participated in the development activities of the Habro awraja starting from the late 1980s. The 1984 Harerghe Province All Games Championship it hosted was the major sport festival in history of the town where all of the 13 awrajas in Hararghe participated in

2310-499: A transliteration of Oromo language was in 1846 in a German newspaper in an article on the Oromo in Germany. After Abyssinia annexed Oromo's territory, the language's development into a full-fledged writing instrument was interrupted. The few works that had been published, most notably Onesimos Nesib 's and Aster Ganno 's translations of the Bible from the late 19th century, were written in

2464-438: A vowel (e.g. in word-final environments or as part of consonant clusters). The Arabic script has also been used intermittently in areas with Muslim populations. Like most other Ethiopian languages, whether Semitic, Cushitic, or Omotic, Oromo has a set of ejective consonants , that is, voiceless stops or affricates that are accompanied by glottalization and an explosive burst of air. Oromo has another glottalized phone that

2618-410: A wat, or thick stew, served atop injera , a large sourdough flatbread made of teff flour in the shape of pancakes usually of about 30 to 45 cm in diameter. When eating traditional injera dishes in groups, it's normally it eaten from a mesob (shared food basket), with each person breaking off pieces of injera flatbread using only the right hand, from the side nearest them and dipping it into stew in

2772-476: A word. This article uses ⟨c⟩ consistently for / tʃʼ / and ⟨ch⟩ for / tʃ / . Only the penultimate or final syllable of a root can have a high tone, and if the penultimate is high, the final must also be high; this implies that Oromo has a pitch-accent system (in which the tone need be specified only on one syllable, the others being predictable) rather than a tone system (in which each syllable must have its tone specified), although

2926-437: Is a cultural identity; however, much of the scholarship indicates that it is solely a class-based identity, devoid of ethnicity". Solomon Gashaw asserts that "there is no intra-Amhara ethnic consciousness, except among northern settlers in southern Ethiopia". He notes that most Amharic-speaking people identify by their place of birth. He asks, "what is Amhara domination?", answering: "It is a linguistic and cultural domination by

3080-571: Is a language of primary education in Oromia , Harari , Dire Dawa , Benishangul-Gumuz and Addis Ababa and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region . It is used as an internet language for federal websites along with Tigrinya . Under Haile Selassie 's regime, Oromo was banned in education, in conversation, and in administrative matters. Ethnologue (2015) assigns five ISO codes to Oromo: Blench (2006) divides Oromo into four languages: Some of

3234-559: Is a subject pro-drop language . That is, neutral sentences in which the subject is not emphasized do not require independent subject pronouns: kaleessa dhufne 'we came yesterday'. The Oromo word that translates 'we' does not appear in this sentence, though the person and number are marked on the verb dhufne ('we came') by the suffix -ne . When the subject in such sentences needs to be given prominence for some reason, an independent pronoun can be used: ' nuti kaleessa dhufne ' ' we came yesterday'. The table below gives forms of

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3388-404: Is a two-way distinction between singular ('I', 'you sg.') and plural ('we', 'you pl.'), whereas for third person, there is a two-way distinction in the singular ('he', 'she') and a single form for the plural ('they'). Because Oromo has only two genders, there is no pronoun corresponding to English it ; the masculine or feminine pronoun is used according to the gender of the noun referred to. Oromo

3542-505: Is about 60 km to the south of Gelemso. In the 1980s, the Dergue government had established a strong military base there in order to watch the nearby movements of OLF . which is a commonly known name in Oromo nomenclature. However, among many places of the Chercher highlands called by the name Qunburah , the Oromo elders do not consider any one as a long standing. But this does not mean there

3696-634: Is believed to have begun somewhere during the Aksumite period. The political importance of Amhara further increased after the fall of Aksum , which marked the shift of the political center of the Christian Ethiopian state from Aksum in the north to the Zagwe region of Lasta further inland. The Amhara nobles supported the Zagwe dynasty prince Lalibela in his power struggle against his brothers which led him to make Amharic Lessana Negus (lit. "language of

3850-399: Is located to the south-east of Hayq , as well as to the north-east of Ancharo (Chiqa Beret). The decorations and symbols which are inscribed on the pottery substantiate the expansion of Aksumite civilization to the south of Angot. According to Karl Butzer "By 800, Axum had almost ceased to exist, and its demographic resources were barely adequate to stop the once tributary pastoralists of

4004-419: Is more unusual, an implosive retroflex stop , "dh" in Oromo orthography, a sound that is like an English "d" produced with the tongue curled back slightly and with the air drawn in so that a glottal stop is heard before the following vowel begins. It is retroflex in most dialects, though it is not strongly implosive and may reduce to a flap between vowels. One source describes it as voiceless [ᶑ̥] . Oromo has

4158-688: Is provided in the Historia Aethiopica by Hiob Ludolf , the data of which came from Abba Gorgoryos , himself a native of Amhara. On the map of Historia Aethiopica , Amhara is situated between the Abay River to the west, the Bashilo River in the north, the Afar Depression to the east and the Awash River to the south. The province consisted of much of Wollo and northern Shewa , and encompassed

4312-640: Is regarded by the Oromo as pejorative, is an Afroasiatic language that belongs to the Cushitic branch. It is native to the Ethiopian state of Oromia and northern Kenya and is spoken predominantly by the Oromo people and neighboring ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa . It is used as a lingua franca particularly in the Oromia Region and northeastern Kenya. With more than 41.7 million speakers making up 33.8% of

4466-543: Is slightly modified from the Ethiopic or Ge'ez script , an abugida . For centuries, the predominant religion of the Amhara has been Christianity , with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church playing a central role in the culture of the country . According to the 2007 census, 82.5% of the population of the Amhara Region was Ethiopian Orthodox; 17.2% of it was Muslim , 0.2% of it was Protestant (see P'ent'ay ) and 0.5% of it

4620-406: Is solemnized in church, where divorce is forbidden, and usually observed among the orthodox priests. Patrilineal descent is the norm. While the wife had no inheritance rights, in case a child was conceived during the temporary damoz marriage, the child could make a claim a part of the father's property. Amhara cuisine consists of various vegetable or spicy meat side dishes and entrées, usually

4774-464: Is the language with the fourth most speakers, after Arabic (if one counts the mutually unintelligible spoken forms of Arabic as a single language and assumes the same for the varieties of Oromo), Swahili , and Hausa . Besides first language speakers, a number of members of other ethnicities who are in contact with the Oromo speak it as a second language. See, for example, the Omotic -speaking Bambassi and

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4928-463: Is the most widely spoken Cushitic language and among the five languages of Africa with the largest mother-tongue populations. Oromo serves as one of the official working languages of Ethiopia and is also the working language of several of the states within the Ethiopian federal system including Oromia , Harari and Dire Dawa regional states and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region . It

5082-566: Is to treat the "singular" form as unspecified for number. When it is important to make the plurality of a referent clear, the plural form of a noun is used. Noun plurals are formed through the addition of suffixes . The most common plural suffix is -oota ; a final vowel is dropped before the suffix, and in the western dialects, the suffix becomes -ota following a syllable with a long vowel: mana 'house', manoota 'houses', hiriyaa 'friend', hiriyoota 'friends', barsiisaa 'teacher', barsiiso(o)ta 'teachers'. Among

5236-484: Is to use the noun meaning 'self': of(i) or if(i) . This noun is inflected for case but, unless it is being emphasized, not for person, number, or gender: isheen of laalti 'she looks at herself' (base form of of ), isheen ofiif makiinaa bitte 'she bought herself a car' (dative of of ). The other possibility is to use the noun meaning 'head', mataa , with possessive suffixes: mataa koo 'myself', mataa kee 'yourself (s.)', etc. Oromo has

5390-612: The Eskista ; the most well known Amharan folk dance. The begena , a large ten-string lyre; is an important instrument solely devoted to the spiritual part of Amhara music. Other instruments includes the Meleket wind instrument, and the Kebero and Negarit drums. From the 1950s onward foreign influence i.e. foreign educated Ethiopians and the availability of larger quantities of new instruments led to new genre's of Amharic music and ushered in

5544-619: The Chercher highlands and named for his honor Asebe Teferi (which means Teferi wished it in Amharic). Bahru Zewde narrates that in 1933, immediately after his ascension to the throne, Emperor Haile Selesie made Chercher awraja the model of his future administration system. However, when Italy conquered Ethiopia and formed the Italian East Africa in 1935, Gelemso began to expand in every direction. During their five years administration,

5698-503: The Ge'ez alphabet . Following the 1974 Revolution , the government undertook a literacy campaign in several languages, including Oromo, and publishing and radio broadcasts began in the language. All Oromo materials printed in Ethiopia at that time, such as the newspaper Bariisaa , Urjii and many others, were written in the traditional Ethiopic script. Plans to introduce Oromo language instruction in schools, however, were not realized until

5852-673: The Golden age such as Asnaketch Worku , Bahru Kegne, Kassa Tessema and Mary Armede were renowned for their mastery of traditionel instruments. The political turmoil during the Derg regime (1974-1991) led to censorship of music; night life came to a standstill through government imposed curfews and the curbing of musical performances. Notable Ethiopian musicians were jailed including those of Amhara descent such as Ayalew Mesfin and Telela Kebede . A revival of Qene ; Amharic poetic songs which uses double entendre known as sam-enna warq ( wax and gold )

6006-917: The Greeks Kostar Gragor and his brother Stafrol , the Italians Antonio Viccini and Francesco Berto , the Sudanese Haji Abdullah and Sheikh Bashir Babikir , and the Indian Usma'il Hindii . Latter on, natives of the town like Mohammad Abdo (Lungo) , Ahmed Yusuf , Mohammed Beker , Muteki Sheikh Mohammed and his brother Ahmad Taqi , Haji Ahmed Nure , Haji Sani Abdulqadir , Ahmed Alhadi , Usmail Ahmayyu , Nejash Usmail , Belew Haile , Mekonnen Metaferia , Jemaneh Yimamu , Tiruneh Gebremichael , Omar Ghazali and his brother Mumme Ghazali etc....and well known Ethiopian entrepreneurs like Mohammed Abdullahi Ogsade also entered to

6160-644: The Kara Qurqura Massacre where 70 people (half of them in the pretext of Amhara land lords who resist the land reform , and half of them labeled Oromo secessionists who conspire against the state with Somali Expansionists ) were taken away from town, executed, and then bulldozed to one grave in April 1970 at a place called Karra Qurqura . (20 km east of Gelemso. In similar way Dergue military groups massacred 32 innocent civilians (children, baby of 1 year, women and elderly) bulldozed and buried in one grave yard in

6314-567: The Nilo-Saharan -speaking Kwama in northwestern Oromia. The Oromo people use a highly developed oral tradition. In the 19th century, scholars began writing in the Oromo language using Latin script . In 1842, Johann Ludwig Krapf began translations of the Gospels of John and Matthew into Oromo, as well as a first grammar and vocabulary. The first Oromo dictionary and grammar was produced by German scholar Karl Tutschek in 1844. The first printing of

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6468-502: The Ya'ii (conferences) of the Chaffe Gada were undertaken at Oda Bultum in recent years were called in the name of Aw -Seid . In this case, the role of the saint called Aw-Seid at the establishment of Oda Bultum can be accepted without any doubt. However, it is not clear again how Gelemso was elevated to a place of high social status with the establishment of Oda Bultum , pertaining that

6622-559: The line of history long before the appearance of many of the current towns of the Hararghe region. In 1887, while campaigning to occupy the city state of Harar and the whole of Eastern Ethiopia, which he accomplished after his victory at the Battle of Chelenqo , Emperor Menelik II had arrived at the bottom of the current Gelemso town. The Ethiopian writer Tekletsadik Mekuria tells that Menelik arrived at Gelemso on December 18, 1886. Menelik

6776-433: The ) with suffixes on the noun: -(t)icha for masculine nouns (the ch is geminated though this is not normally indicated in writing) and -(t)ittii for feminine nouns. Vowel endings of nouns are dropped before these suffixes: karaa 'road', karicha 'the road', nama 'man', namicha / namticha 'the man', haroo 'lake', harittii 'the lake'. For animate nouns that can take either gender,

6930-434: The 13th century. Hence, as the sources say, Aw Seid came with his family and settled at Gelemso. He built the first mosque of the town, but he had little success in converting the local Oromos to Islam. Latter, he disagreed with the Ittu Oromo and returned to Harar, where he died and buried according to legends. However, some of the most notable scholars who studied the case deeply, such as Ulrich Bräukamper , suggest that

7084-651: The 15th century, the Egyptian Al Makrizi had mentioned as one of the Seven Islamic Principalities of the Southern and Eastern Ethiopia that constituted the Zeyla Federation . In the oral history collected from the elderly people, the ancient Dawaro is said to be synonymous to the late Daro district which was merged with the adjacent district of Lebu to form the current Darolebu woreda during

7238-509: The 1960s and 1970s Golden Age of Ethiopian music . The popular Ethio-Jazz genre pioneered by Mulatu Astatke was created from the Tizita qañat of the Amhara combined with the use of Western instruments. Saxophone legend Getatchew Mekurya instrumentalized the Amhara war cry Shellela into an genre in the 1950s before joining the Ethio-Jazz scene later in his career. Other Amharic artists from

7392-746: The 1st century AD, the North and South branches of Ethio-Semitic diverged. Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Semitic language and mixed with the Semitic population. Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum . The proto-Amhara, or the northernmost South Ethio-Semitic speakers, remained in constant contact with their North Ethio-Semitic neighbors, evidenced by linguistic analysis and oral traditions. A 7th century southward shift of

7546-465: The 20th century, the minimum age was raised to 18, and this was enforced by the Imperial government. After a church wedding, divorce is frowned upon. Each family hosts a separate wedding feast after the wedding. Upon childbirth, a priest will visit the family to bless the infant. The mother and child remain in the house for 40 days after birth for physical and emotional strength. The infant will be taken to

7700-415: The 50 days between Easter and Pentecost . On all other days meat and dairy products are allowed. A variety of vegan dishes are consumed during fasting periods. Ethiopia is a Buna (coffee) exporter, but also has a very large domestic consumer base. During social gatherings Amharas drink Buna in a unique and traditional way known as a coffee ceremony . First the coffee is roasted, then ground and placed in

7854-733: The 9th century AD, when the Istifanos monastery was erected on Lake Hayq . Several other sites and monuments indicate the presence of similar Axumite influences in the area, such as the Geta Lion statues, which are located 10 km south of Kombolcha , and are believed to date back to the 3rd century AD, though they may even date back to pre-Axumite times. In 1998, ancient pieces of pottery were found around tombs in Atatiya in Southern Wollo, in Habru which

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8008-482: The Amhara identity is claimed to be composed of multiple ethnicities by some, whereas others "reject this concept and argue that Amhara exists as a distinctive ethnic group with a specific located boundary". He further noted that "although people from the Ethiopian highland areas think of themselves as Amharas, the Northern Shoans specifically call themselves Amhara. That is why the Oromo and Tigrian discourse associate

8162-443: The Amhara, mostly a peasant population, is different from a mixed group of urban people coming from different ethnic background, who have adopted Amharic as a common language and identify themselves as Ethiopians". In a 2017 article, historian Brian J. Yates notes that some "scholars and politicians have attempted to sketch out what an Amhara is, but there are considerable divergences on the nature of this identity. Some argue that it

8316-497: The Donald Levine, these consisted of high-ranking clans, low-ranking clans, caste groups (artisans), and slaves. Slaves or rather servants were at the bottom of the hierarchy, and were primarily drawn from the pagan Nilotic Shanqella and Oromo peoples. Also known as the barya (meaning "slave" in Amharic), they were captured during slave raids in Ethiopia's southern hinterland. War captives were another source of slaves, but

8470-520: The Ethiopian expatriate community, particularly in North America . They speak Amharic , an Afro-Asiatic language of the Semitic branch which serves as the main and one of the five official languages of Ethiopia. As of 2018, Amharic has over 32 million native speakers and 25 million second language speakers. The Amhara and neighboring groups in North and Central Ethiopia and Eritrea, more specifically

8624-513: The Ethiopian population. It belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and is the largest member of the Ethiopian Semitic group. As of 2018 it had more than 57 million speakers worldwide (32,345,260 native speakers plus 25,100,000 second language speakers), making it the most commonly-spoken language in Ethiopia in terms of first- and second-language speakers, and

8778-512: The Haile Selasie period. However, it is unclear as to what Gelemso appeared to be when the ancient Sultanate of Dawaro was flourishing. But again, we may argue that the oral history concerning the Islamization effort of Aw Seid , in which Gelemso is identified as the scene of action , may have solid truths which can be inferred from the chronological concurrence of the mission of Aw Seid and

8932-489: The Islamization effort of Aw Seid could be a phenomenon of latter ages (i.e. after the 16th century), an argument that has a good ground, as far we consider the starting period of the mutual interdependence between the Muslims of the southeast and their Oromo neighbors. But one thing that deserves attention here is the recurrent appearance of a name Aw Seid or Seid Ali in the long list of Harari saints, from which we may infer

9086-537: The Italians returned the seat of the Chercher province to Gelemso (which was moved first to Kunni , then to Asebe Teferi or Chiro by the Haile Selassie officials) and made valuable change on its urban customs. They established new settlements in the northern and eastern parts of the town, starting from a hill called now Kambo (from Italian campo which mean a military camp). The Italian occupiers also constructed

9240-694: The Ittu Oromo, he was a Sharif (i.e. descendant of Muhammad) It was in latter periods that his followers who believed in his sainthood added a prefix Aw to his name, in the manner of the Harari and the Somali who call their saints and national heroes so. ( Aw meaning father in Harari language, and male saints are usually called with this title.). Since then, Seid Ali has been called Aw Seid . Local history tellers say that in order to achieve his target, Aw Seid had to seek

9394-420: The Lord of the Jabarta." The cultural contact and interaction between the Amhara and the indigenous Agaw accelerated after the 14th century. As the Agaw adopted the Amharic language and converted to Orthodox Christianity , they increasingly succumbed to Amhara acculturation. Other South Semitic speakers like the Gafat and Argobba in Shewa also began to adopt Amharic and assimilate into Amhara society. By

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9548-444: The Northern Shoans as oppressive-Amharas." According to Gideon P. E. Cohen, writing in 2000, there is some debate about "whether the Amhara can legitimately be regarded as an ethnic group, [...] given their distribution throughout Ethiopia, and the incorporative capacity of the group that has led to the inclusion of individuals from a wide range of ethnic or linguistic backgrounds". Similarly, Tezera Tazebew notes that "the early 1990s

9702-399: The ancient Galma Usso gave rise to the current Galamso , the name of the town. Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency , the result of the third Ethiopian census shows that Galamso has total population of 210,000 of which 113,003 are male and 107,481 are female. . However, this report is unacceptable to many people and organizations, including authorities in the departments of

9856-404: The ancient Harala people are observable in all of the Hararghe highlands. Their mysterious legends reach as far as Karayu in the west and Jijjiga in the east. The city produced many doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, nurses, pharmacists, and many other professions. It is difficult to trace when the history of the town starts. And it is so troublesome to single out the early history of

10010-416: The ancient Harla people, whom we know only through their legends and few descriptions in the works of some scholars. All of our sources (oral and written) dignify the importance of a man mentioned above as Aw Seid in the birth of the town. It is said that Aw Seid was appointed by Sheikh Abadir , the then chief Islamic scholar in Harar , to preach Islam to the Oromos around Gelemso in the second half of

10164-421: The autobenefactive; in this case the s of the causative is replaced by f : deebi '- 'return (intransitive)', deebis- 'return (transitive), answer', deebifam- 'be returned, be answered', deebifadh- 'get back for oneself'. Another derived verbal aspect is the frequentative or "intensive," formed by copying the first consonant and vowel of the verb root and geminating the second occurrence of

10318-403: The basis for three derived voices, passive, causative, and autobenefactive, each formed with addition of a suffix to the root, yielding the stem that the inflectional suffixes are added to. The voice suffixes can be combined in various ways. Two causative suffixes are possible: ka '- 'go up', kaas- 'pick up', kaasis- 'cause to pick up'. The causative may be followed by the passive or

10472-433: The border marches from pillaging the defenseless countryside." With some of the common people the Axumite elite abandoned Axum in favor of central Ethiopia. Christian families gradually migrated southward into Amhara and northern Shewa. Population movement from the old provinces in the north into more fertile areas in the south seems to have been connected to the southward shift of the kingdom. The Christianization of Amhara

10626-478: The business and they altogether marked the town's classic commercial era. That was why the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia moved against its working rule of the time and opened a branch at Gelemso (according to its working rule of that time, the bank do not open its branch in a town found far away from the High Way). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, General Taddese Birru , a well known Oromo nationalist and co-founder of Mecha-Tulama Self Help Association , had been in

10780-520: The cases, there is a range of forms possible, some covering more than one case, and the differences in meaning among these alternatives may be quite subtle. In most languages, there is a small number of basic distinctions of person , number , and often gender that play a role within the grammar of the language. Oromo and English are such languages. We see these distinctions within the basic set of independent personal pronouns, for example, English I , Oromo ani ; English they , Oromo ' isaani ' and

10934-611: 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. By about the 9th century AD, there was a linguistically distinct ethnic group called the Amhara in the area of Bete Amhara . The origin of the Amhara name is debated. A popular Folk etymology traces it to amari ("pleasing; beautiful; gracious") or mehare ("gracious"). Another popular etymology claims that it derives from Ge'ez ዐም ( ʿam , "people") and ሐራ ( ḥara , "free" or "soldier"). "Amhara"

11088-503: The center of the basket. There is also a great variety of vegetarian stews such as lentils, ground split peas, grains, accompanied by injera and/or bread. Amharas adhering to any of the Abrahmic religions do not eat pork or shellfish of any kind for religious reasons. Amhara Orthodox Christians do not consume meat and dairy products (i.e. egg, butter, milk, and cheese) during specific fasting periods, and on every Wednesdays and Fridays except

11242-523: The church for baptism at 40 days (for boys) or 80 days (for girls). Surviving Amharic literary works dates back to the 14th century, when songs and poems were composed. In the 17th century Amharic became the first African language to be translated into Latin when Ethiopian priest and lexicographer Abba Gorgoryos (1595–1658) in 1652 AD made a European voyage to Thuringia in Germany . Gorgoryos along with his colleague and friend Hiob Ludolf co-authored

11396-434: The class is not predictable from the verb stem. It is the forms that precede suffixes beginning with consonants ( t and n ) that differ from the usual pattern. The third person masculine singular, second person singular, and first person plural present forms are shown for an example verb in each class. The common verbs fedh- 'want' and godh- 'do' deviate from the basic conjugation pattern in that long vowels replace

11550-647: The contest. Gelemso was also the first town of Eastern Ethiopia where the Development Bank of Ethiopia had opened its branch (now this branch had moved to Chiro or Asbeteferi ). One of the main urban zones of the town, called in its Amharic name Addis Ketema (the New City), totally emerged during the Dergue time as well. It is worth having also to mention the former President Mengistu Haile-Mariam had visited Gelemso and its surrounding villages in 1985 which makes Mengistu

11704-467: The definite suffix may indicate the intended gender: qaalluu 'priest', qaallicha 'the priest (m.)', qallittii 'the priest (f.)'. The definite suffixes appear to be used less often than the in English, and they seem not to co-occur with the plural suffixes. Oromo nouns appear in seven grammatical cases , each indicated by a suffix, the lengthening of the noun's final vowel, or both. For some of

11858-511: The diaspora refer to themselves as "Habesha" ( Abyssinian ) people. Historically, the Amhara held significant political position in the Ethiopian Empire . They were the origin of the Solomonic dynasty and all the emperors of Ethiopia were Amhara with the exception of Yohannes IV since the restoration of the dynasty in 1270. The earliest extants of the Amhara as a people, dates to

12012-528: The digraphs ch, dh, ny, ph, sh. Gemination is not obligatorily marked for digraphs, though some writers indicate it by doubling the first element: qopphaa'uu 'be prepared'. In the charts below, the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for a phoneme is shown in brackets where it differs from the Oromo letter. The phonemes /p v z/ appear in parentheses because they are only found in recently adopted words. There have been minor changes in

12166-429: The district and zonal administrations. People who refuse the report demonstrate their argument simply by the sex ratio of the population (19 males/15 females) . which can not express the reality of the town. On the other hand, many inconsistencies of the report may induce one to reject its conclusion For example, the report says that the town of Mieso has a population of 13,339, exceeded by Galamso only with 3000 souls. On

12320-871: The earliest grammar book of the Amharic language, an Amharic-Latin dictionary, as well as contributing to Ludolf's book "A History of Ethiopia". Modern literature in Amharic however, started two centuries later than in Europe, with the Amharic fiction novel Ləbb Wälläd Tarik , published in Rome in 1908, widely considered the first novel in Amharic, by Afäwarq Gäbrä Iyäsus . Amhara intellectual Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam pioneered African and Ethiopian theatre when he authored Fabula: Yawreoch Commedia , Africa's first scripted play. Since then countless literature in Amharic has been published and many modern-day writers in Amharic translate their work into English for commercial reasons. Up until

12474-554: The early 12th century in the middle of the Zagwe Dynasty, when the Amhara were recorded of being in conflict in the land of Wargih against the Wärjih in 1128 AD. A non-contemporary 13th or 14th century hagiographical source from Saint Tekle Haymanot traces Amhara even further back to the mid 9th century AD as a location. Amharic is a South Ethio-Semitic language, along with Gurage , Argobba and others. Some time before

12628-478: The end of the 16th century, the populations of Gojjam , Lasta and Begemder were almost completely made up of Christian Amharic speakers. Despite every work on Ethiopia stressing the political dominance of the Amhara people in the history of the Ethiopian Christian empire. In both Christian and Muslim written traditions up to the 19th century, and in the Ethiopian chronicles of the 14th to 18th centuries,

12782-726: The eyes of the contemporary. The Egyptian historian al-Mufaddal ibn Abi al-Fada'il in 704 Hijri (1304-1305 AD) labelled the Emperor of Abyssinia as al-Malik al-Amhari or "the Amhara King". In 1436 Ibn Taghribirdi wrote a passage about the death of Emperor Yeshaq referring to him as the Lord of Amhara, "The Hatse, the Abyssinian king, the infidel and the Lord of the Amhara in Abyssinia died (in this year). His estates were much enlarged after wars waged and led by him against Sultan Sa'ad ad-Din ,

12936-423: The first graveled road of the town, and connected it with Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa through all weather roads which run in the west to Awash (via small towns of Hardim and Bordode ), and in the east to Dire Dawa through Wachu and Badessa . (The remnant of the western old road still exists with its decorated Italian style bridge built on the northern section of Aw Seid river). The first modern buildings of

13090-573: The flourishing era of the Sultanate of Dawaro (i.e. both of them were phenomena of the same historical period, from the 13th century to the 15th century). And again, it is said that Gelemso assumed a wider fame with the foundation of Oda Bultum as a cultural and administrative center of the Eastern Barento Oromos (one of the two major tribal confederations of the Oromo people, the other being Borana ) . Here, as many books have recorded, it

13244-449: The form of filigree jewelry and religious emblems. The Amhara culture recognizes kinship, but unlike other ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa region, it has a lesser role. Household relationships are primary, and the major economic, political and cultural functions are not based on kin relationships among the Amharas. Rather abilities of the individual matter. For example, states Donald Levine,

13398-405: The formation of the garrison had also some bad objectives behind. It is said that Menelik II had an aim of erasing the centrality and symbolism of early places like Gelemso from the mind and the heart of his Oromo subjects. Truly speaking, it was Emperor Menelik II who officially closed down all of the traditional Oromo institutions like Chaffe assembly and prohibited many other cultural feasts,

13552-462: The geminated consonants that would result when suffixes beginning with t or n are added: fedha 'he wants', feeta 'you (sg.) want', feena 'we want', feetu 'you (pl.) want', hin feene 'didn't want', etc. The verb dhuf- 'come' has the irregular imperatives koottu , koottaa . The verb deem- 'go' has, alongside regular imperative forms, the irregular imperatives deemi , deemaa . An Oromo verb root can be

13706-444: The gender of the modified noun). However, in the western dialects, the masculine forms (those beginning with k- ) are used in all cases. Possessive adjectives may take the case endings for the nouns they modify: ganda kootti 'to my village' ( -tti : locative case). As in languages such as French , Russian , and Turkish , the Oromo second person plural is also used as a polite singular form, for reference to people that

13860-502: The government of Mengistu Haile Mariam was overthrown in 1991, except in regions controlled by the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). With the creation of the regional state of Oromia under the new system of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, it has been possible to introduce Oromo as the medium of instruction in elementary schools throughout the region, including areas where other ethnic groups live speaking their languages, and as

14014-419: The group closed its missionary activities in the 1960s, the school they built has continued to function to this day, and the elderly people still call it Amerikaanii (The American). Gelemso was made a municipal town in 1952. And in the year 1958, while it remained still under the Chercher awraja administration, it was designated an electoral district (in Amharic called የምርጫ አውራጃ ) and had got 2 seats in

14168-491: The house (in this case Aw Seid ). The name Galma Usso was introduced in this way, and in the long period of time, it evolved to Galamso . This story is not documented, while the Islamization effort of Aw Seid has been discussed by different scholars. However, as the name Galamso can never be found at any other place in the Oromo lands (in the whole of Ethiopia and the world either), and as it has no exact meaning in Oromo or any other language, it might be sound to conclude

14322-493: The imperial parliamentary assembly of the Haile Seliasie regime, which was won in that very year by Haji Abdullahi Sheikh Ahmed and Mukhtar Mohammed . However, the governmental projects were rarely planned and executed in the town then. But when it became the capital of Habro awraja upon the splitting up of the former Chercher awraja to Habro and Chercher-Adal-Gara Guracha awrajas (Chiro or Asebe Teferi remained

14476-512: The influence of clergy among the Amhara has been based on "ritual purity, doctrinal knowledge, ability to perform miracles and capacity to provide moral guidance". The social relationships in the Amhara culture are predominantly based on hierarchical patterns and individualistic associations. Family and kin relatives are often involved in arranging semanya (eighty bond marriage, also called kal kidan ), which has been most common and allows divorce. Other forms of marriage include qurban , which

14630-509: The initial consonant. The resulting stem indicates the repetition or intensive performance of the action of the verb. Examples: bul- 'spend the night', bubbul- 'spend several nights', cab- 'break', caccab- 'break to pieces, break completely'; dhiib- 'push, apply pressure', dhiddhiib- 'massage'. The infinitive is formed from a verb stem with the addition of the suffix -uu . Verbs whose stems end in -dh (in particular all autobenefactive verbs) change this to ch before

14784-641: The king") as well as fill the Amhara nobles in the top positions of his Kingdom. Yekuno Amlak , a prince from Bete Amhara (lit: House of Amhara) claimed descent from Solomon , and established the Solomonic Dynasty in 1270 AD. The early rulers of the Solomonic Dynasty may have been referred to as the "kings of Amhara ", due to the origin of their founder, Yekuno Amlak , and therefore, their followers were called "Amhara" and brought this new name with them when they conquered new lands. Characterized by

14938-546: The latter's capital) in the year 1968 and afterwards, some improvements were made. For example, the town was equipped with electric light service for 6 hours a night, and its tap water supply system (built by Italians) was expanded. However, it was the efforts of Arabian, European and Asian traders that greatly helped Gelemso continue its long standing role as market center and social panorama . The list of those foreign traders includes Nasir Sana'ani , Abdallah Ubadi , Ali Ahmed , Ali Sa'ad , Salah Muhsin who were all Yemenis ,

15092-462: The mid 20th century, Amharic music consisted mainly of religious and secular folk songs and dances. Qañat Amhara secular folk music developed in the countryside through the use of traditionel instruments such as the masenqo , a one-string bowed lute ; the krar , a six-string lyre ; and the washint flute played by the local village musicians called the Azmaris , and the peasantry dancing

15246-601: The mid-19th century. Within the broader territory of Amharic speakers, certain regions developed into autonomous political centers. To the south, beyond Lake Tana, the province of Gojjam developed a dynasty of rulers and became a powerful kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire . The district of Menz in Shewa became the center for the development of a political dynasty culminating in King Sahle Selassie , Emperor Menelik II and Emperor Haile Selassie . Through their control of

15400-483: The natives Oromo , is a principal language in the town. Amharic is also widely spoken in the town. From among the languages of international significance, in Galamso town, it is Arabic that has due benefits for communication purposes. It is said that some 40 years ago, Arabic was the language of commerce in the town, a custom survived to this date. Here are some important notes on social and commercial customary features of

15554-449: The old tradition of sam-enna warq and used layered expression to evade skirt stringent censorship and oppressive laws (such as the anti-terror law) while reminding the people of their similarities and the importance of maintaining solidarity. In June 2022 Teddy Afro bashed Abiy Ahmed and his regime in a critical new song (Na'et), following the Gimbi massacre . In his song he tries to vent

15708-402: The only Ethiopian ruler that came across the town for official visit while in office. However, the prosperous situation prevailing during the Dergue time must never be considered as an expression of sympathetic view of the Dergue towards Gelemso. The motives behind the Dergue's considerable attention, as many people believe, were the economic importance of the Habro awraja for whom Gelemso

15862-473: The orthography since it was first adopted: ⟨x⟩ ( [ tʼ ] ) was originally rendered ⟨th⟩ , and there has been some confusion among authors in the use of ⟨c⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ in representing the phonemes / tʃʼ / and / tʃ / , with some early works using ⟨c⟩ for / tʃ / and ⟨ch⟩ for / tʃʼ / and even ⟨c⟩ for different phonemes depending on where it appears in

16016-422: The other common plural suffixes are -(w)wan , -een , and -(a)an ; the latter two may cause a preceding consonant to be doubled: waggaa 'year', waggaawwan 'years', laga 'river', laggeen 'rivers', ilma 'son', ilmaan 'sons'. Oromo has no indefinite articles (corresponding to English a , some ), but (except in the southern dialects) it indicates definiteness (English

16170-399: The other hand, Hirna town, which is twice as large as Mieso has only 11,650, something very difficult to believe. Free viewers say that the census has defects, and the Ethiopian government admitted that. But the quest for the true figure of the population of Galamso and many other factors remained unanswered. With regard to the religious affiliations, it is witnessed by many that most of

16324-1190: The other. Grammatical gender in Oromo enters into the grammar in the following ways: Except in some southern dialects, there is nothing in the form of most nouns that indicates their gender. A small number of nouns pairs for people, however, end in -eessa (m.) and -eettii (f.), as do adjectives when they are used as nouns: obboleessa 'brother', obboleettii 'sister', dureessa 'the rich one (m.)', hiyyeettii 'the poor one (f.)'. Grammatical gender normally agrees with natural gender for people and animals; thus nouns such as Abbaa 'father', Ilma 'son', and sangaa 'ox' are masculine, while nouns such as haadha 'mother' and intala 'girl, daughter' are feminine. However, most names for animals do not specify biological gender. Names of astronomical bodies are feminine: aduu 'sun', urjii 'star'. The gender of other inanimate nouns varies somewhat among dialects. Oromo displays singular and plural number , but nouns that refer to multiple entities are not obligatorily plural: nama 'man' namoota 'people', nama shan 'five men' namoota shan 'five people'. Another way of looking at this

16478-412: The particle hin ). For example, deemne 'we went', deemna 'we go', akka deemnu 'that we go', haa deemnu 'let's go', hin deemnu 'we don't go'. There is also a separate imperative form: deemi 'go (sg.)!'. The table below shows the conjugation in the affirmative and negative of the verb beek- 'know'. The first person singular present and past affirmative forms require

16632-400: The particular verb tense / aspect / mood , they are normally not considered to be pronouns and are discussed elsewhere in this article under verb conjugation . In all of these areas of the grammar—independent pronouns, possessive adjectives, possessive pronouns, and subject–verb agreement—Oromo distinguishes seven combinations of person, number, and gender. For first and second persons, there

16786-657: The perception, treatment and duties of these prisoners was markedly different. According to Levine, the widespread slavery in Greater Ethiopia formally ended in the 1930s, but former slaves, their offspring, and de facto slaves continued to hold similar positions in the social hierarchy. The separate Amhara caste system of people ranked higher than slaves was based on the following concepts: (1) endogamy, (2) hierarchical status, (3) restraints on commensality, (4) pollution concepts, (5) traditional occupation, and (6) inherited caste membership. Scholars accept that there has been

16940-495: The personal pronouns in the different cases, as well as the possessive adjectives. For the first person plural and third person singular feminine categories, there is considerable variation across dialects; only some of the possibilities are shown. The possessive adjectives, treated as separate words here, are sometimes written as noun suffixes. In most dialects there is a distinction between masculine and feminine possessive adjectives for first and second person (the form agreeing with

17094-593: The place called 'Biyo' few km from town of Michata. It is still remembered locally as 'Qabri sodoma' in local Oromo language. On May 30, 1991, the town came under the control of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and was made the administrative center of the OLF-held areas in the former provinces of West Hararghe , Arsi and Bale . The most memorable event of that time was the Oda Bultum festival, where about 800,000 Oromos came together at Gelemso and Oda Bultum to celebrate

17248-702: The place called so is 25 km from the town. Some people say Gelemso was an administrative capital and the seat of the Mana Bokkuu (the President's Office) of the Eastern Oromo , with Oda Bultum serving as the place where Caffee Gadaa assembled only once in eight years. And others say that it was a place where the Oda Bultum itself was located prior to its move to the current place. Latter on, oral history says, Gelemso evolved to an important village of commerce when one of its counties called Qabri Lukku (now found in

17402-402: The political center of Ethiopian society and via assimilation, conquests, and intermarriages, the Amhara have spread their language and many customs well beyond the borders of their primary homeland in Bete Amhara . This expansion served as a cohesive force, binding together the disparate elements of the larger Ethiopian polity. This cohesion proved crucial for the Ethiopian state as it engaged in

17556-563: The process of modern nation-building in the 19th century, thereby preserving its independence against potential threats from European colonial powers. Additionally, it facilitated various modernizing initiatives, including the abolition of the slave trade, the implementation of new communication and transportation systems, the establishment of schools and hospitals, and the creation of modern government institutions. Within traditional Amharic society and that of other local Afro-Asiatic -speaking populations, there were four basic strata. According to

17710-499: The proximal pronouns; in the western dialects the masculine forms (beginning with k- ) are used for both genders. Unlike in English, singular and plural demonstratives are not distinguished, but, as for nouns and personal pronouns in the language, case is distinguished. Only the base and nominative forms are shown in the table below; the other cases are formed from the base form as for nouns, for example, sanatti 'at/on/in that' (locative case). An Oromo verb consists minimally of

17864-404: The region of Lake Hayq and the famous Istifanos Monastery . The Amhara monarchs moved continuously from region to region, showing a particular preference for the southernly regions of Ifat , Shewa and Dawaro until the political upheavals of the 16th century, after which the province of Begemder became home for the city of Gondar , royal capital for the Ethiopian polity from the 1630s to

18018-543: The resettlement program. On the other hand, one of the most important features of Gelemso town, the Sheikh Omar mosque, was built in that period while Sheikh Omar was Qadi of the Chercher province. In 1951, the Christian missionary group of American Adventist Church constructed the first school of the town at a place called Lode (now separated from the main town by gorge created by gully erosion and called Tirso ). Although

18172-492: The residents of the town (around 70%) are Muslims. And Orthodox Christianity is the second significant religious domination (about 25%). Oromo is the native and the dominant ethnic group in Gelemso and the surrounding areas. Amhara is the second largest ethnicity with persons from different Gurage subgroups at the third level. And a few others are persons of Somali , Argoba and Harari ethnicities. . The Oromo tongue, called by

18326-625: The resurrection of the ancient Chaffe Gadaa assembly tradition. On June 21, 1992, when OLF quitted the transitional government, Gelemso was passed to the current Ethiopian government led by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front along with the other towns of the West Harerghe Zone. Oromo language Oromo ( / ˈ ɒr ə m oʊ / OR -əm-ow or / ɔː ˈ r oʊ m oʊ / aw- ROW -mow ; Oromo: Afaan Oromoo ), historically also called Galla , which

18480-475: The rules are complex (each morpheme can contribute its own tone pattern to the word), so that "one can call Oromo a pitch-accent system in terms of the basic lexical representation of pitch, and a tone system in terms of its surface realization." The stressed syllable is perceived as the first syllable of a word with high pitch. Like most other Afroasiatic languages , Oromo has two grammatical genders , masculine and feminine, and all nouns belong to either one or

18634-539: The saint called so was not a mere a legendary man only. (For example, he might have been engraved in Harar after his mission had failed in the land of the Ittu Oromo ). For all, detail investigations would clarify the real story. The current site of Gelemso town lays, according to proposed suggestions, within the boundary of the ancient Sultanate of Dawaro ,. whom in the 14th century, the Syrian writer Abu Fadlulah Al Umari and, in

18788-517: The second most spoken Semitic language after Arabic . Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic. Many followers of the Rastafari movement learn Amharic as a second language, as they consider it to be a sacred language. Amharic is the working language of the federal authorities of the Ethiopian government, and one of the five official languages of Ethiopia. It

18942-444: The set of possessive adjectives and pronouns , for example, English my , Oromo koo ; English mine , Oromo kan koo . In Oromo, the same distinctions are also reflected in subject–verb agreement: Oromo verbs (with a few exceptions) agree with their subjects ; that is, the person, number, and (singular third person) gender of the subject of the verb are marked by suffixes on the verb. Because these suffixes vary greatly with

19096-454: The south eastern tip of the town) was organized as a market center to accommodate traders who were coming from different regions. It is said that at that place, a local chief called Lukkuu had mastered over the caravan traders who used to sell the goods they brought from remote areas. Few elders, however, dispute this story and say rather Lukku was a man who in ancient times, left the traditional Oromo religion and accepted Islam so that when he

19250-400: The southern part of the current site of Galamso town, the Oromo started to call it galma Usso . Here, as elders say, galma stands to notify the spiritual significance of the newly built structure, (even though galma originally refers to the worshiping house of the traditional Oromo religion, the Oromos used to call the worshiping house of any faith by this name) and Usso denotes the owner of

19404-498: The speaker wishes to show respect towards. This usage is an example of the so-called T-V distinction that is made in many languages. In addition, the third person plural may be used for polite reference to a single third person (either 'he' or 'she'). For possessive pronouns ('mine', 'yours', etc.), Oromo adds the possessive adjectives to kan 'of': kan koo 'mine', kan kee 'yours', etc. Oromo has two ways of expressing reflexive pronouns ('myself', 'yourself', etc.). One

19558-431: The suffix -n to appear on the word preceding the verb or the word nan before the verb. The negative particle hin , shown as a separate word in the table, is sometimes written as a prefix on the verb. For verbs with stems ending in certain consonants and suffixes beginning with consonants (that is, t or n ), there are predictable changes to one or the other of the consonants. The dialects vary

19712-707: The suffix. Examples: dhug- 'drink', dhuguu 'to drink'; ga '- 'reach', ga ' uu 'to reach'; jedh- 'say', jechu 'to say'. The verb fedh- is exceptional; its infinitive is fedhuu rather than the expected fechuu . The infinitive behaves like a noun; that is, it can take any of the case suffixes. Examples: ga ' uu 'to reach', ga ' uuf 'in order to reach' (dative case); dhug- 'drink', dhugam- 'be drunk', dhugamuu to be drunk', dhugamuudhaan 'by being drunk' (instrumental case). Amhara people Amharas ( Amharic : አማራ , romanized :  Āmara ; Ge'ez : ዐምሐራ , romanized:  ʾÄməḥära ) are

19866-491: The suppressed public anger and indignation, the swelling public resentment to the chaos in the country. Amhara art is typified by religious paintings. One of the notable features of these is the large eyes of the subjects, who are usually biblical figures. It is usually oil on canvas or hide, some surviving from the Middle Ages. The Amhara art includes weaved products embellished with embroidery. Works in gold and silver exist in

20020-505: The term "Amhara" is a region, not an ethnonym. In pre-17th century Ethiopia, Amhara was described as the heartland of the Empire and the cradle of the monarchy. Medieval European maps suggest that within the Ethiopian Empire , Amhara had a higher position as a "kingdom" among provinces. The Italian ( Venetian ) cartographer Fra Mauro , notes a Regno Hamara or "Kingdom of Amhara" in his famous Mappomondo in 1460. Important information on Amhara

20174-509: The total Ethiopian population , Oromo has the largest number of native speakers in Ethiopia, and ranks as the second most widely spoken language in Ethiopia by total number of speakers (including second-language speakers) following Amharic . Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by an additional half-million people in parts of northern and eastern Kenya . It is also spoken by smaller numbers of emigrants in other African countries such as South Africa , Libya , Egypt and Sudan . Oromo

20328-409: The town for his supposed ግዞት (Amharic for house arrest ) . Fortunately, the incident favored Tadesse to meet other early Oromo nationalists like Elemo Kiltu , Ahmad Taqi and Mohammed Zakir Meyra , with whom he could demonstrate his devotion for Oromo freedom, an act that became one of the main reasons for which Gelemso is heard so loudly. When the Dergue came to power in 1974, more attention

20482-412: The town from the history of the whole of the Hararghe highlands. But for accuracy purposes, and to construct a relevant historical order, it is better to discuss those tales that directly focus to the town itself. Accordingly, some data obtained from oral history and written sources, which might describe the antique nature of the town, are not presented here. These include specially the one that related to

20636-437: The town were also attributed to the Italians, the most eloquent of them being St. Michael Catholic Church mentioned above. Scholars tell us that the Italians had focused on Gelemso because of its presence in the vicinity of Wachu (10 km east of Gelemso), a place where they intended to build Secondo Roma (Second Rome), a future city to be evolved from the agrarian community that would be brought from southern Italy under

20790-448: The town. Locations of interest around Gelemso include the followings. a chronicle of the brilliant campaigns of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi whom the Ethiopian writers call Ahmad Gragn , which was written by the eyewitness of the conquests in the 16th century. This village is found about 30 km away from Gelemso (in the western direction) near to a small town called Hardim . The village (a small market of about 1000 residents)

20944-417: The two tensed forms, past (or "perfect") and present (or "imperfect" or "non-past"). Each of these has its own set of tense/agreement suffixes. There is a third conjugation based on the present which has three functions: it is used in place of the present in subordinate clauses , for the jussive ('let me/us/him, etc. V', together with the particle haa ), and for the negative of the present (together with

21098-479: The typical Eastern Cushitic set of five short and five long vowels, indicated in the orthography by doubling the five vowel letters. The difference in length is contrastive, for example, hara 'lake', haaraa 'new'. Gemination is also significant in Oromo. That is, consonant length can distinguish words from one another, for example, badaa 'bad', baddaa 'highland'. In the Qubee alphabet, letters include

21252-656: The varieties of Oromo have been examined and classified. About 85 percent of Oromo speakers live in Ethiopia , mainly in the Oromia Region . In addition, in Somalia there are also some speakers of the language. In Kenya , the Ethnologue also lists 722,000 speakers of Borana and Orma , two languages closely related to Ethiopian Oromo. Within Ethiopia, Oromo is the language with the largest number of native speakers. Within Africa, Oromo

21406-411: The vowel a is inserted between them. For example, arg- 'see', arga 'he sees', argina or agarra (from agar-na ) 'we see'; kolf- 'laugh', kolfe 'he laughed', kolfite or kofalte 'you (sg.) laughed'. Verbs whose stems end in the consonant ' (which may appear as h , w , or y in some words, depending on the dialect) belong to three different conjugation classes;

21560-418: The worship house under the traditional ( Waqefanna ) religion of the Oromos, we may wonder why the mosque was called so. The Oromo elders explain the case as follows. The Ittu Oromo who are usually mentioned as the native Oromo group of the Chercher highlands , says Aw Seid was the first person to start an Islamization campaign in their land. His real name was Seid Ali and according to the oral history of

21714-548: Was Jewish (see Beta Israel ). The Ethiopian Orthodox Church maintains close links with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria . Easter and Epiphany are the most important celebrations, marked with services, feasting and dancing. There are also many feast days throughout the year, when only vegetables or fish may be eaten. Marriages are often arranged , with men marrying in their late teens or early twenties. Traditionally, girls were married as young as 14, but in

21868-466: Was a capital (among the 13 awrajas of the former Hararghe province), and to an equal importance, Gelemso's central location in the Chercher highlands, a region highly known for Oromo rebellion. Indeed, the Dergue era was also a period where brutal campaigns like the Red Terror were undertaken in Gelemso and elsewhere in the country. For instance, the residents of Gelemso still have fresh memories of

22022-515: Was also Aw Seid who played a key role in the derivation of the Oromo Constitutional Law (called Hera ) at Oda Bultum . Prior to the 1991 governmental change (during Haile Selassie and Dergue times), people who live closer to the Oda Bultum often called the Oda itself as Aw Seid . ( oda is a tree known in its scientific name as Ficus gnaphalocarpa ) . And many rituals exercised when

22176-713: Was an indigenous Oromo script invented by Sheikh Bakri Sapalo (1895–1980; also known by his birth name, Abubaker Usman Odaa) in the late 1950s, and used underground afterwards. Despite structural and organizational influences from Ge'ez and the Arabic script , it is a graphically independent creation designed specifically for Oromo phonology. It is largely an Abugida in nature, but lacks the inherent vowel present in many such systems; in actual use, all consonant characters are obligatorily marked either with vowel signs (producing CV syllables) or with separate marks used to denote geminated consonants or pure/standalone consonants not followed by

22330-462: Was attracted by the landscape around Gelemso and ordered a garrison to be founded there, which his warlords had executed immediately. The garrison was established at the western part of the current town, and had been called Gorgo (an Amharic name for a kind of tree). That was a second turn in the long history of Gelemso, by which it had leaped from a small village of cultural importance to a truly urbanized community. However, elderly people assert that

22484-507: Was developed by the Jimma Times Oromiffa Group (JTOG) in cooperation with SelamSoft. Voice of America also broadcasts in Oromo alongside its other horn of Africa programs. In May 2022, Google Translate added Afaan Oromo as translation. Oromo and Qubee are currently utilized by the Ethiopian government's state radios, TV stations and regional government newspaper. Oromo is written with a Latin alphabet called Qubee which

22638-493: Was diseased, the Ittu Oromo sanctioned his dead body not to be buried with the mass, a reason why we see his grave on isolated ground. ( Qabrii Lukku mean grave of Lukku ) To conclude, when we consider oral histories which assert the town had Karra Torba (The Seven Gates) in ancient times, non existent in the case of other towns of West Harerghe save Gelemso, when we consider its presence closer to places of significant traditions like Halayya Buchuro and Laga Bera (retold as

22792-421: Was for some time also the sole language of primary school instruction, but has been replaced in many areas by regional languages such as Oromo and Tigrinya . Nevertheless, Amharic is still widely used as the working language of Amhara Region , Benishangul-Gumuz Region , Gambela Region and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region . The Amharic language is transcribed using a script ( Fidal ) which

22946-540: Was formally adopted in 1991. Various versions of the Latin-based orthography had been used previously, mostly by Oromos outside of Ethiopia and by the OLF by the late 1970s (Heine 1986). With the adoption of Qubee, it is believed more texts were written in the Oromo language between 1991 and 1997 than in the previous 100 years. In Kenya, the Borana and Waata also use Roman letters but with different systems. The Sapalo script

23100-424: Was given to Gelemso. Viewers and most of the residents say that the Dergue era was a prosperous time in the town's history where many governmental buildings were erected, and subsequent improvements were made in the town. This includes the health centre, two primary schools, the current Gelemso High School, the multipurpose city assembly hall (a unique at the time in all of Eastern Ethiopia), the public slaughter house,

23254-413: Was historically a medieval province located in the modern province of Wollo ( Bete Amhara ), the area which is now known as the Amhara Region was composed of several provinces which had little or no autonomy, these provinces included Dembiya , Begemder , Gojjam , Wollo, Lasta , Shewa , Semien , Angot and Wag . Evidence of a traceable Christian Aksumite presence in Amhara dates back to at least

23408-708: Was marked by debates, both popular and scholarly, on the (non-)existence of Amhara as a distinct ethnic group", giving the debate between the academic Mesfin Woldemariam and president of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi in July 1991 as an example. Due to large amounts of assimilation into the northern Amhara culture after Ethiopian imperial expansion , Siegfried Pausewang concluded in 2005 that "the term Amhara relates in contemporary Ethiopia to two different and distinct social groups. The ethnic group of

23562-402: Was no place who had this name in ancient times. In fact, one of the places called Qunburah in Chercher highlands is believed to be the offshoot of the ancient Qunburah of Al Futhul Habash . Therefore, a search for that place should continue. Today, as Professor Urlich Braukamper had described precisely in his book, the remnants of the stone built necropolis, store pits, houses and mosques of

23716-582: Was used for subversive dialogue and resistance to state censorship. Thousands of Ethiopians including musicians migrated during this period to form communities in different countries. Amharic songs of resistance against the autocratic EPRDF regime led by the TPLF (1991-2018) continued; with prevailing themes being rampant corruption, economic favoritism, excessive emphasis on ethnic identity and its ability to undermine national unity. Amharic musicians; such as Getish Mamo, Nhatty Man, Teddy Afro and others turned to

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