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58-535: Shewa ( Amharic : ሸዋ ; Oromo : Shawaa ; Somali : Shawa; Arabic : شيوا ), formerly romanized as Shua , Shoa , Showa , Shuwa ( Scioà in Italian ), is a historical region of Ethiopia which was formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire . The modern Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is located at its center. The towns of Debre Berhan , Antsokia , Ankober , Entoto and, after Shewa became

116-513: 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

174-513: 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

232-505: A province of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa have all served as the capital of Shewa at various times. Most of northern Shewa, made up of the districts of Menz , Tegulet , Yifat , Menjar and Bulga , is populated by Christian Amharas , while southern Shewa, despite being historically inhabited by Amhara, is currently inhabited by the Gurages , Oromo and Argobba Muslim populations. The monastery of Debre Libanos , founded by Saint Tekle Haymanot ,

290-440: A first language by 39.93%, 35.04% Silt'e , 10.06% spoke Soddo Gurage , 3.93% spoke Amharic , 2.16% spoke Libido , and 1.93% spoke Kebena ; the remaining 6.95% spoke all other primary languages reported. The majority of the inhabitants were reported as Muslim , with 29.98% of the population reporting that belief, while 51.97% practised Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity , 15.9% were Protestants , and 1.95% Catholic . According to

348-423: A massive stem that grows underground and is involved in every aspect of Gurage life. It has a place in everyday interactions among community members as well as specific roles in rituals. For example: the ritual uses of ensete include wrapping a corpse after death with the fronds and tying off the umbilical cord after birth with an ensete fiber; the practical uses include wrapping goods and fireproofing thatch. Ensete

406-469: A permanent settlement. In addition to Amda Seyon's military settlement there, the permanence of Abyssinian presence in Gurage is documented during his descendants Zara Yaqob and Dawit II 's reigns. Thus, historically, Gurage peoples may be the product of a complex mixture of Abyssinian and Harla groups which migrated and settled in that region for different reasons and at various times. Another stated that

464-730: 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

522-537: Is also exchanged as part of a variety of social interactions, and used as a recompense for services rendered. Ensete is totally involved in every aspect of the daily social and ritual life of the Gurage, who, with several others tribes in Southwest Ethiopia, form what has been termed the Ensete Culture Complex area... the life of the Gurage is enmeshed with various uses of ensete, not the least of which

580-796: 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

638-571: 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

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696-658: 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

754-493: 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

812-407: Is destined for death." Different species of ensete are also eaten to alleviate illness. The Gurage regard overeating as coarse and vulgar, and regard it as poor etiquette to eat all of the ensete that a host passes around to guests. It is considered polite to leave at least some ensete bread even after a very small portion is passed around. The Gurage in rural highland areas centers their lives on

870-602: 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 Gurage people According to the 2007 Ethiopian national census the Gurage can also be found in substantial numbers in Addis Ababa , Oromia Region , Harari Region and Dire Dawa . According to

928-414: Is located in the district of Silalish, Shewa Modern Shewa includes the historical Endagabatan province. Shewa first appears in the historical record as part of a Muslim state ( Makhzumi dynasty ), which G. W. B. Huntingford believed was founded in 896, and had its capital at Walalah . In a recent discovery, a team of French archaeologists uncovered three urban centers believed to have been remnants of

986-469: 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

1044-416: 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

1102-439: Is nutritional. Ensete can be prepared in a variety of ways. A normal Gurage diet consists primarily of kocho , a thick bread made from ensete, and is supplemented by cabbage, cheese, butter and grains. Meat is not consumed on a regular basis, but usually eaten when an animal is sacrificed during a ritual or ceremonial event. The Gurage pound the root of the ensete to extract the edible substance, then place it in deep pits between

1160-418: Is the main staple food , Teff and other cash crops are grown, which include coffee and khat which used as traditional stimulants . Animal husbandry is practiced, mainly for milk supply and dung. Other foods consumed include green cabbage, cheese, butter, roasted grains, meat and others. The principal crop of the Gurage is ensete (also enset, Ensete edulis , äsät or "false banana plant"). This has

1218-813: Is written left to right using a system based on the Geʽez script . According to the 1994 census, the six largest ethnic groups reported in Gurage Zone were the Sebat Bet Gurage (45.02%), the Silt'e (34.81%), the Soddo Gurage (9.75%), the Mareqo or Libido (2.21%), the Amhara (2.16%), and the Kebena (1.82%); all other ethnic groups made up 4.21% of the population. Sebat Bet Gurage is spoken as

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1276-537: The Egyptian-Ethiopian War , Emperor Yohannes IV , who was angered over Menelik's claim to be the Emperor, marched into Shewa and ravaged the towns. Menelik, realizing that resistance was futile, was forced to submit to Yohannes. Escaping influence from Yohannes, Menelik moved his capital south from Ankober to Mount Entoto in 1884. There, his wife Taytu Betul was attracted to a nearby spring known as Finfinne by

1334-651: The Emperor Haile Selassie rewarded his achievement in creating his plantation by calling him to Addis Ababa and decorating him." The Gurage people are highly entrepreneurial people with a culture of social mobility that celebrates hard work. As a result, the Gurage are represented in all business sectors in Ethiopia, ranging from shoe shiners to owners of big businesses. Commonly, the Addis Ababa Merkato attributed to them. They are model of good work culture in

1392-475: The Gurage were originated from a place called Gura, Eritrea . This believed that linguistically by citing a southward Semitic migration during the late classical and medieval period; however more historical research needed. A single military expedition explanation is likely possible for soldiers to implant their language in the region effectively. However the extent of Aksumite political and economic control over

1450-441: The Semitic family of the Afroasiatic language family . They have three subgroups: Northern, Eastern and Western. Gurage languages include Sebat Bet , consisting of the dialects Inor , Ezha , Muher , Geta , Gumer , Endegegn , Chaha , and also Soddo , Masqan , Zay . Like other Ethiopian Semitic languages , the Gurage languages are heavily influenced by the surrounding non-Semitic Afroasiatic Cushitic languages . Gurage

1508-471: 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,

1566-505: The Tulama Oromo , whom he defeated in the early 1820s. He followed this victory by rebuilding Debre Berhan, which had been burned in an Oromo raid, as well as a number of other towns and consolidated his hold by founding a number of fortified villages, like Angolalla , in the Abichu territory. He extended the frontier of Shewa into Bulga and Karayu, to the southeast into Arsi, and as far south as

1624-457: 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

1682-534: The 1994 Ethiopian census, self-identifying Gurage comprise about 2.7% of Ethiopia's population, or about 1.4 million people. The populations of Gurage people are not exactly known because approximately half of the population live outside of the Gurage zone. The Gurage, the writer Nega Mezlekia notes, "have earned a reputation as skilled traders". One example of an enterprising Gurage is Tekke, who Nathaniel T. Kenney described as "an Ethiopian Horatio Alger, Jr. ": "He began his career selling old bottles and tin cans;

1740-463: 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

1798-519: 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

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1856-524: The Gurage East people may have been an extension of the ancient Harla people. Indeed, there is evidence that Harla architecture may have influenced old buildings (pre-16th c.) found near Harar (eastern Ethiopia), and the Gurage East group often cite kinship with Harari (Hararghe) peoples in the distant past. Braukhamper also states King Amda Seyon ordered Eritrean troops to be sent to mountainous regions in Gurage (named Gerege), which eventually became

1914-417: The Gurage also call injera). The Gurage raise zebu . These cattle are primarily kept for their butter, and a typical Gurage household has a large quantity of spiced butter aging in clay pots hung from the walls of their huts. Butter is believed to be medicinal, and the Gurage often take it internally or use it a lotion or poultice. A Gurage proverb states that "A sickness that has the upper hand over butter

1972-552: The Sarako tradition through their contact with the Gurage. The Amhara Shewan ruling family was founded in the late 17th century by Negasi Krestos , who consolidated his control around Yifat and extended his territory to the south by conquering Menz , Tegulet and Merhabete from the Oromos. Upon rising to power, Sahle Selassie aligned himself to the Abichu Oromo and turn his attention to

2030-449: 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

2088-626: The battle was Aläqa Zänäb, author of the first chronicle of Emperor Tewodros. The muslim Gurages fought for over a decade to keep the Shewans from the Muslim areas of Gurage until 1888 when Gobana Dacche faced them in the Battle of Jebdu Meda where the army was defeated by the Shewans, and with that all of Gurageland was subdued. The Gurage languages are a subgroup of the Ethiopian Semitic languages within

2146-622: The boy to Bakarat where he was captured and imprisoned at his mountain stronghold in Amba Mariam . After crushing the Amhara opposition in the province, Tewdoros then turned his attention towards the Oromo and according to Zanab "exterminated all the Gallas, from Debre Berhan to Ankober so that their corpses covered the ground like a carpet." Menelik II , who escaped from Amba Mariam at the end of June 1865 when he

2204-527: 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

2262-662: The central Highlands. In the late 1870s Menelik led a campaign to incorporate the lands of the Gurage people into Shewa . In 1878, the Soddo Gurage living in Northern and Eastern Gurageland peacefully submitted to Menelik and their lands were left untouched by his armies, likely due to their shared Ethiopian Orthodox faith and prior submission to Negus Sahle Selassie , grandfather of the Emperor . However, in Western Gurageland which

2320-460: The clans of the Borana, Gombichu and Ada, entered Shewa, they found no-one to stop them, since the children of Sarako had been killed. Enrico Cerulli believes that this tradition is related to the Amhara tradition of an arrogant king, which is attributed to Emperor Dawit II . However, he also notes that Sarako is the Gurage name for Emperor Zara Yaqob , from this he concludes that the Oromo acquired

2378-493: 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

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2436-518: 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

2494-569: The east, and its ancient cities were destroyed. Most of Shewa was overrun by the Oromos during the late 16th century. Its eastern fringe was reportedly inhabited by the Harla people according to the Karrayyu Oromo. According to oral traditions, Shewa had a powerful king named Sarako, who prevented the people from bearing arms. A certain giant arose against Sarako, and his children, and destroyed them. When

2552-500: The former Sultanate of Ifat , with the Nora site in eastern Shewa being the most notable among them. Yekuno Amlak based his uprising against the Zagwe dynasty from an enclave in Shewa. He claimed Solomonic forebears, direct descendants of the pre-Zagwe Axumite emperors, who had used Shewa as their safe haven when their survival was threatened by Gudit and other enemies. This is the reason why

2610-427: The historian Paul B. Henze , the Gurage origin is explained by traditions of a military expedition to the south during the last years of the Kingdom of Aksum , which left military colonies that eventually became isolated from both northern Ethiopia and each other. However other historians have raised the issue of the complexity of Gurage peoples if viewed as a singular group, for example Ulrich Braukhamper states that

2668-569: The interior Ethiopian Highlands, as well as that of successor dynasties dominating the Christian north, is being studied. Aside from local oral traditions linking their past to areas farther north, the Gurage countryside is home to orthodox Christian monasteries likely dating to the Middle Ages (Debre Tsion Maryam, Muher Iyesus, Abuna Gebre Menfes Kiddus, and others), before the conquests of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi and subsequent Oromo migrations into

2726-592: The local Oromo inhabitants. In the spring of 1886, Menelik chose the site for Addis Ababa , his future capital. Building began at once, and, when Menelik became emperor of the whole country in 1889, Addis Ababa became the capital of Ethiopia. 9°00′N 39°00′E  /  9.000°N 39.000°E  / 9.000; 39.000 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] )

2784-475: 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

2842-459: The region got the name "Shewa" which means 'rescue' or 'save'. This claim is supported by the Kebra Nagast , a book written under one of the descendants of Yekuno Amlak, which mentions Shewa as part of the realm of Menelik I . Aksum and its predecessor Dʿmt were mostly limited to Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea during the 1st millennium BCE. However, Shewa eventually became a part of Abyssinia upon

2900-617: The rise of the Amhara Solomonic dynasty . Dawit I and his successors stayed in Fatagar (part of Shewa) for a long time in Tobya (Yifat, Fatagar). The province served as the birthplace of the future emperors Zara Yaqob and Dawit II . Zara Yaqob and Na'od would then make Debre Berhan and Zway their capitals respectively. In 1528 Shewa was overrun by Muslim invaders from the Sultanate of Adal to

2958-438: The rows of ensete plants in the field. It ferments in the pit, which makes it more palatable. It can be stored for up to several years in this fashion, and the Gurage typically retain large surpluses of ensete as a protection against famine. In addition to ensete, cash crops are maintained (notably coffee and khat ) and livestock is raised (mainly for milk and fertilizer). Some Gurage also plant teff and eat injera (which

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3016-612: 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

3074-458: The same time the Oromo seized the opportunity to rebel and burnt Ankober to the ground. Haile Melekot, decided to prevent Debre Berhan from falling into the hands of his enemy and had the town put to flames, he then fled to a nearby hill where he hoped to hide but soon died of an illness on November 10. After Haile Melekot' death, Tewdoros' opponents rallied behind the late king's son, Menelik II . Tewdoros left his camp at Debre Berhan and pursued

3132-681: The territories of the Gurage. After a few years, Sahle Selassie felt his position secure enough that he proclaimed himself Negus, or king, of Shewa, Ifat, the Oromo and the Gurage peoples, without the authority of the Emperor of Ethiopia in Gondar . After the death of Sahle Selassie in 1847, Shewa fell under the rule of his son, Haile Melekot . Shewa soon attracted the attention of Emperor Tewodros II , who mobilized his army in Wollo and advanced into Shewa in October 1855. The Emperor advanced into Tegulet and around

3190-429: The whole Ethiopia. One of the most famous Ethiopian musicians, Mohamoud Ahmed, still recalls how he started out in life shining shoes in the city before he got his break and joined the music orchestra that allowed him to capture the imagination of millions of admirers both in Ethiopia and abroad. The Gurage live a sedentary life based on agriculture, involving a complex system of crop rotation and transplanting. Ensete

3248-529: Was inhabited by the Sebat Bet, Kebena and Wolene fiercely resisted Menelik. They were led by Imam Omar Baqsa of Chaha and Hassan Enjamo of Kebena who declared jihad against the Shewans. In October 1876 Menilek himself campaigned in Chaha Gurage. He was defeated and a large number of Shewan captives were sold to Wällamo by the victors. Only about one-third of Menilek's men returned safely. Among those killed in

3306-467: 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

3364-604: Was twenty one years old, quickly returned to war-ravaged Shewa. During the first part of his reign, he ordered the reconstruction of various fortified towns such as Ankober , Debre Berhan and Warra Ilu. These sites had the advantage of being in the center of his realm, enabling him to remain in contact with the Christians to the south and the Muslim Oromos in the northeast. The area around these town moreover had rich pastures capable of feeding numerous cavalry and other livestock. After

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