JĘZYK W POZNANIU Ogólnopolska Studencka Językoznawcza Konferencja Naukowa
kng-jwp.home.amu.edu.pl

Michał Kozicki (Poznań)

Planning of the Amharic language

The Amharic language belongs to the Semitic language family. It is spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Amharic is written in the Geez script which is called a syllabary. Presently, 276 letters are used. In Amharic, there are 27 consonants and 7 vowels. The Geez syllabary is of the South Arabian origin.
With the fall of the Axumite dynasty in the 10^th century the country centre was moved to the province of Lasta but the descendants of the Solomonic dynasty who laid claim to the throne were then living in the Amhara region. When Yekuno Amlak came to power, the Geez language lost its status though it was used in education and religious services. Not until the reign of Emperor Haile Selasse was the Amharic language given an official status. Currently it has the status of a working language in Ethiopia as the 5^th article of the new 1995 constitution stipulates that all the Ethiopian languages have equal state of recognition.
The National Academy of the Amharic language in Ethiopia is a board whose aim is to foster the growth of this language and to encourage its use in the literature. Along with the increase of contacts with the European civilization, there was a need to create new words most of which were borrowed from English. As for the English borrowings, there are a few ways of incorporating them into Amharic, for example, writing them in the Geez script which reflects the lexifier's pronunciation or even inventing new words on the basis of the Geez language.



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