Geʽez
| Geʽez | |
|---|---|
| ግዕዝ Gəʽ(ə)z | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈɡɨʕ(ɨ)z] |
| Native to | Eritrea, Ethiopia |
| Extinct | Before 10th century to 14th century Remains in use as a liturgical language. |
| Geʽez script, Ancient South Arabian script | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Liturgical language of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Eritrean Catholic Church, Ethiopian Catholic Church, and Beta Israel |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | gez |
| ISO 639-3 | gez |
| Glottolog | geez1241 |
Geʽez (/ˈɡiːɛz/ or /ɡiːˈɛz/; ግዕዝ Gəʽ(ə)z IPA: [ˈɡɨʕ(ɨ)z] ⓘ, and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Today, Geʽez is used as the main liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, and the Beta Israel Jewish community.
Hawulti Obelisk is an ancient pre-Aksumite obelisk located in Matara, Eritrea. The monument dates to the early Aksumite period and bears an example of the ancient Geʽez script.
In one study, Tigre was found to have a 71% lexical similarity to Geʽez, while Tigrinya had a 68% lexical similarity to Geʽez, followed by Amharic at 62%. Most linguists believe that Geʽez does not constitute a common ancestor of modern Ethio-Semitic languages but became a separate language early on from another hypothetical unattested common language.