Bausi, Alessandro

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     Aethiopica 19 (2016) International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies     ________________________________________________________________  ALESSANDRO BAUSI, Universität Hamburg  Review AARON MICHAEL BUTTS, ed., Semitic Languages in Contact Aethiopica 19 (2016), 308–312 ISSN: 2194–4024 ________________________________________________________________  Edited in the Asien-Afrika-Institut  Hiob Ludolf Zentrum für Äthiopistik  der Universität Hamburg Abteilung für Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik    by Alessandro Bausi in cooperation with Bairu Tafla, Ulrich Braukämper, Ludwig Gerhardt,  Hilke Meyer-Bahlburg and Siegbert Uhlig Aethiopica 19 (2016) Editorial The present issue of AETHIOPICA, like the preceding one, is partly monograph-ic, with a section containing the proceedings of the Panel on Islamic Literature in Ethiopia: New Perspectives of Research, from the ‘19th International Con-ference of Ethiopian Studies’, held in Warsaw, Poland, on 24–28 August 2015. Starting from this issue, the annual bibliography on Ethiopian Semitic and Cushitic linguistics held from its inception in 1998 for eighteen years by Rainer Voigt is handed over, on Voigt’s own wil, to a pool of younger scholars, with the substantial support of the AETHIOPICA editorial team. I would like on this occasion to express the deep gratitude of the editorial board of AETHIOPICA and of al scholars in Ethiopian Semitic and Cushitic linguistics to Rainer Voigt for his fundamental and valuable contribution. Bibliographical abbreviations used in this volume AÉ  Annales  d’Éthiopie, Paris 1955f. ÄthFor  Äthiopistische Forschungen, 1–35, ed. by E. HAMMERSCHMIDT, 36–40, ed. by S. UHLIG (Stutgart: Franz Steiner (1–34), 1977–1992; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (35–40), 1994–1995). AethFor  Aethiopistische  Forschungen, 41–73, ed. by S. UHLIG (Wiesbaden: Harrasso-witz, 1998–2011); 74–75, ed. by A. BAUSI and S. UHLIG (ibid., 2011f.); 76ff. ed. by A. BAUSI (ibid., 2012ff.). AION  Annali del’Università degli studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’, Napoli: Università di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’ (former Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli), 1929f. CSCO  Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 1903f. EAe S.  U HLIG, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, I: A–C; II: D–Ha; III: He–N; in cooperation with A. BAUSI, eds, IV: O–X (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010);  A. BAUSI in cooperation with S. UHLIG, eds, V: Y–Z, Supplementa, Addenda et Corrigenda, Maps, Index (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2014). EI² Encyclopaedia of Islam, I–XII (Leiden: E.J. Bril, 1960–2005). EMML  Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, Addis Ababa. JES Journal of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa 1963f. JSS Journal of Semitic Studies, Manchester 1956f. NEASt Northeast African Studies, East Lansing, MI 1979f. OrChr Oriens Christianus, Leipzig–Roma–Wiesbaden 1901f. PICES 9 A.A. GROMYKO, ed., 1988, Proceedings of the Ninth International Congres of Ethiopian Studies, Moscow, 26–29 August 1986, I–VI (Moscow: Nauka Publishers, Central Department of Oriental Literature, 1988). RSE  Rasegna di Studi Etiopici, Roma, 1941–1981, Roma–Napoli 1983f. ZDMG  Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Geselschaft, Leipzig–Wiesbaden–Stutgart 1847f. Reviews Aethiopica 19 (2016) 308ihrer Sprache verständigen können, da hier die Unterschiede auf dem Dialekt-Niveau sind. Andere Nachbarn sprechen Sprachen, die mit der der Ñaŋatom nur weitläufig verwandt sind (was für die historische Linguistik von Interesse ist, aber der Kommunikation wenig nützt) oder gar nicht verwandt sind und anderen Sprachfamilien angehören (Omotisch, Kuschitisch). Es gibt also Möglichkeiten der Verbesserung und insbesondere des Fort-führens und Ergänzens dieser wirklich gelungenen Diplomarbeit. Es ist der Autorin und der Wissenschaft zu wünschen, dass sich dafür die Gelegenheit ergibt. Günther Schlee, Hale (Saale) AARON MICHAEL BUTTS, ed., Semitic Languages in Contact, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 82 (Leiden–Boston, MA: E.J. Bril, 2015). xxvi, 427 pp. Euro 150.00. ISBN: 978-90-04-30014-9. Even before the topic of linguistic interference was brought to a new level and to the general atention of linguists with Uriel Weinreich’s classic con-tribution (Languages in contact, 1st edn 1953), the importance of the phe-nomenon of interference in Semitic linguistics and in the study of Ethiopian Semitic (henceforth ES) in particular was so apparent, that several studies had already been devoted to the topic—from the now neglected contributions of Martino Mario Moreno to Wolf Leslau’s wel-known article which ap-peared in the first issue of the prestigious Word.1 This rich and remarkable volume carefuly edited by Aaron Michael Buts in the Bril series on Semitic linguistics ofers a wide spectrum of cases of  1  See M.M. Moreno’s ‘Evoluzione dei linguaggi indigeni a contato dela civiltà e forma-zione dele lingue indigene e leterarie ed uficiali in Africa’, in Ati del’VIII° Convegno dela fondazione Alesandro Volta. Convegno di scienze morali e storiche, 4–11 otobre 1938: Tema: L’Africa, Reale Accademia d’Italia, Classe di scienze morali e storiche (Ro-ma: Reale Accademia d’Italia, 1939), I, 571–590; idem, ‘L’azione del cuscitico sul sistema morfologico dele lingue semitiche del’Etiopia’, RSE, 7 (1948), 121–130; W. Leslau, ‘The Influence of Cushitic on the Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. A Problem of Substratum’, Word, 1 (1945), 59–82. Unfortunately, the systematic and indispensable bibliography by the same Leslau (An annotated bibliography of the Semitic languages of Ethiopia, Bibli-ographies on the Near East, 1 (The Hague: Mouton, 1965) has no special section on in-terference in ES. In the continuing absence of such a systematic bibliography, see for a first orientation: J. Crass and R. Meyer, ‘Ethiosemitic-Cushitic Language Contact’, in S. Weninger, ed., in colaboration with G. Khan, M.P. Streck, and J.C.-E. Watson, The Se-mitic Languages. An International Handbook, Handbook of Linguistics and Communi-cations Science / Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 36 (Ber-lin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2011), 1266–1276. Reviews Aethiopica 19 (2016) 309interference in Semitic and provides materials for general reflection on the phenomenon. The time-range encompassed by the case studies goes back as far as Sumerian-Akkadian linguistic contact to present cases of increasing interference in Palestinian Arabic by modern Hebrew as evidenced in Uri Horesh’s ‘Structural Change in Urban Palestinian Arabic Induced by Contact with Modem Hebrew’ (pp. 198–233), whereas the article on Sumerian-Akkadian contact is fortunately no more a paradigmatic example of a ‘clash of civilizations’ based on linguistic identity—as was believed before the path-breaking Thorkild Jacobsen’s ‘The Assumed Conflict between Sumerians and Semites in Early Mesopotamian History’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 59/4 (1939), 485–495: in the volume, C. Jay Crisostomo’s ‘Language, Writing, and Ideologies in Contact: Sumerian and Akkadian in the Early Second Milennium BCE’ (pp. 158–180) actualy marks a new appreciation of the phenomenon seen from the point of view of the prestige of literary languages. Some contributions are also inspiring for further investigation into ES: for example, Riccardo Contini and Paola Pagano’s thorough analysis (‘Notes on Foreign Words in Hatran Aramaic’ (pp. 126–157) of loanwords (a few Akkadian words, others from Iranian, Greek, Latin and Arabian languages) in a corpus of c.600 inscriptions dating from Roman times (c.44 BCE–238 CE), once made the due proportions, cals for a systematic re-examination of loanwords in ancient Ethiopic on the basis of new sources, particularly from texts of the earlier layer. The case studies on ES languages are placed within a broader perspective and thus gain in significance on the one hand and in pecularity on the other. Not devoid of interest for the history of the South Semitic script, and therefore also of the Ethiopic script, is the contribution by Ahmad Al-Jalad and Ali Al-Manaser on ‘A Thamudic B Abecedary in the South Semitic Leter Order’ (pp. 1–15, with an order hlḥmqws²rbts¹knḫṣṯfʾʿ ḍ), that should have been compared, besides the other paralels quoted (ibid. 10), with the Daḫanamo abecedary from Eritrea (RIÉ no. 165, hlḥmqws²rtbs¹knḫṣ fʾʿḍgẓṭ[z]ḏdyṯṣ) and with a few other fragmentary examples. Remarkably, however, the most macroscopic aspect of interference in ES, i.e. the syntactic change in most modern Ethiopian Semitic languages from a VSO to a SOV typology, assumedly due to Cushitic influence, is so obvious that in a volume like this, where more subtle and less trivial phenomena are particularly researched, it rightly deserves no more than one page in David Appleyard’s ‘Ethiopian Semitic and Cushitic. Ancient Contact Features in Ge‘ez and Amharic’ (pp. 16–32: p. 24). This contribution is a crystal-clear introduction, and, given the author’s long and comprehensive acquaintance with both Semitic and Cushitic languages of Ethiopia, is an excelent intro-duction to the phenomena of interference afecting lexicon, phonology, mor-Reviews Aethiopica 19 (2016) 310phology, and (obviously very briefly), syntax. This essay is essential introduc-introductory reading for al scholars and students interested in a first insight into the linguistic history of the Ethiopian languages area, where (Appleyard quoting Andrzej Zaborski) ‘it is probably impossible to find an Ethiopian language not influenced by [an]other language or languages’ (ibid. 16 and 31). Maria Bulakh’s ‘The Proto-Semitic “Asseverative *la-” and the Innovative 1SG Prefixes in South Ethio-Semitic Languages’ (pp. 68–96) focuses on the morphology of the 1st pers. sg. l–prefix morpheme of the prefix conjugation in South Ethiopian Semitic (typicaly, in Amharic 1st pers. sg. short prefix conjugation/jussive lǝ–ngär) and atempts to demonstrate that a feature recognized long ago as typical of several South Semitic languages (it is wide-ly atested in Modern South Arabian, besides Ethiopian Semitic) can be best explained as the outcome of complex phenomena relating to paralel drift and internal development, and only to a marginal and limited extent to common inheritance and borrowing, as was hypothesized in the past: ‘the “paradigmatic merger” is favoured in the situation of multiple exponence, whereas the “paradigmatic dissimilation” usualy takes place if the prefixes involved are the only exponents of subject indexing’ (p. 92). Jürgen Tubach’s ‘Aramaic Loanwords in Gǝʿǝz’ (pp. 348–374) re-examines the vexata quaestio of some loanwords in Ethiopic (sänbät, mǝṣwat, ṣälot, ṭaʿot, haymanot, etc.) which are religiously marked and concludes that ‘The Hebrew and Aramaic words with a special Jewish connotation […] require Jewish communities in the Axumite empire’ (ibid. 361). Such a conclusion would be of huge relevance for the Ethiopian past but, in the final analysis, the evidence is the smal corpus of loanwords, first systematicaly colected by Theodor Nöldeke—in his famous contribution on ‘Lehnwörter in und aus dem Äthiopischen’, in Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwisenschaft (Strassburg: Trübner, 1910), 31–60 and 237–240. Hans Jakob Polotsky’s ‘Ara-maic, Syriac, and Ge‘ez’, Journal of Semitic Studies, 9 (1964), 1–10, ofered a first, and stil valid answer to the question, firstly disposing of Christian Syri-ac influence, and secondly underlining the fact that these loanwords must derive from an Aramaic-speaking Jewish milieu, and that they also belong ‘to the Judaic leaven in Christianity’ (ibid. 10).2 It is dificult to express the facts  2 On sänbät see now A. Soldati, ‘Nasal infix as index of Semitic loanwords borrowed through the Greek’, in A. Bausi, ed, 150 Years After Dilmann’s Lexicon: Perspectives and Chalenges of Gǝʿǝz Lexicography, Supplements to Aethiopica, 5 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016), 149–171. On the Hebrew etymology on the Gǝʿǝz term for Friday, ʿarb, from arab šabbat or araḇ šabbaṯ, hypothesized by Tubach (pp. 355–356), there is no decisive evidence, since ‘if it was shortened and the second part of the genitive was omited’, also a derivation from ʿarūba attested in the language of the Jews of Arabia would be possible (see C.J. Robin, ‘Quel judaïsme en Arabie?’, in Reviews Aethiopica 19 (2016) 311more clearly. To go along with Tubach and the Ethiopian national tradition and propose that ‘the majority of Ethiopians were adherents of the Old Tes-tament belief before the introduction of Christianity and not pagans’ (ibid. 361) and that the Betä Ǝsraʾel are the descendants of early Jewish setlers in Ethiopia with some connections to South-Arabian Judaism in Aksumite times (ibid. 363), and, at the same time, to cal South Arabia ‘the motherland of the Axumites’ (ibid. 361), is imprecise and quite misleading and is incompatible with the results of wel-focused research (for example by James A. Quirin on the ethnogenesis of Betä Ǝsraʾel, which takes up Maxime Rodinson’s enlight-ening suggestion). On the other hand, epigraphic as wel as archaeological evidence does not alow for speculation either for a neutral monotheistic nor for a Jewish phase before Christianization: on the contrary, the explicit theo-logical character of the Greek Trinitarian ʿEzana inscription (RIÉ no. 271, see also Stephanie L. Black, ‘“In the Power of God Christ”: Greek inscriptional evidence for the Anti-Arian theology of Ethiopia’s first Christian king’, Buletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 71/1 (2008), 93–110) demonstrates the existence of a mature Christianity early in the reign of the first Christian king of Aksum: this is in strong contrast with the hypothesis of a gradual development from paganism to Christianity through a monotheistic phase or even a Jewish one. The volume includes ‘Contents’ (pp. v–vi), a ‘Preface’ by the editor (pp. vi–x), a ‘List of Figures’ (p. xi), as wel as both bibliographic and linguistic ‘Abbreviations’ (pp. xi–xx), which are particularly long and complex given the number of languages and linguistic categories considered; there is also a short profile of the ‘Contributors’ (pp. xx–xxvi) as wel as a useful thematic ‘Index’ (pp. 423–426). Other essays are: Samuel Boyd and Humphrey Hardy, ‘Hebrew Adverbialization, Aramaic Language Contact, and mpny šʾr in Exodus II:19–18’ (pp. 33–51); Yochanan Breuer, ‘The Distribution of Declined Partici-ples in Aramaic-Hebrew and Hebrew-Aramaic Translations’ (pp. 52–67); David Calabro, ‘Egyptianizing Features in Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions from Egypt’ (pp. 97–113); Eran Cohen, ‘Head-Marking in Neo-Aramaic Genitive Constructions and the ezafe Con-struction in Kurdish’ (pp. 114–125); Lutz Edzard, ‘Inner-Semitic Loans and Lexical Dou-blets vs. Geneticaly Related Cognates’ (pp. 181–197); Oto Jastrow, ‘Language Contact as Reflected in the Consonant System of Ṭuroyo’ (pp. 234–250); Lily Kahn, ‘Lexical Borrow-ings in the Eastern European Hasidic Hebrew Tale’ (pp. 251–266); Joseph Lam, ‘Possible Ugaritic Influences on the Hurrian of Ras Shamra-Ugarit in Alphabetic Script’ (pp. 267–279); Mila Neishtadt, ‘The Lexical Component in the Aramaic Substrate of Palestinian  idem, ed., Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique: Actes du coloque de Jérusalem (février 2006), Judaïsme ancient et origines du christianisme, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 15–294, p. 37, n. 108). Note that a German version of Tubach’s contribution (‘Aramäische Lehnwörter im Geez’) appeared in Daniel Assefa and Hirui Abdu, eds, Proceedings of the ‘First International Conference on Ethiopian Texts. May 27–30, 2013 St. Francis Friary, Asko’ (Addis Ababa: CFFRC Press, 2016), 155–174. Reviews Aethiopica 19 (2016) 312Arabic’ (pp. 280–310); Aaron D. Rubin, ‘The Classification of Hobyot’ (pp. 311–333); Lotfi Sayahi, ‘Expression of Atributive Possession in Tunisian Arabic: The Role of Language Contact’ (pp. 333–347); Juan-Pablo Vita, ‘Language Contact between Akkadian and Northwest Semitic Languages in Syria-Palestine in the Late Bronze Age’ (pp. 375–404); Tamar Zewi and Mikhal Oren, ‘Semitic Languages in Contact-Syntactic Changes in the Verbal System and in Verbal Complementation’ (pp. 405–421). Alessandro Bausi, Universität Hamburg MULUKEN ANDUALEM SIFEREW, Comparative clasification of Geʿez verbs in the three traditional schools of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Semitica et Semitohamitica Berolinensia, 17 (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2013). 198 pp. Price: € 48.80. ISBN: 978-3-8440-2348-0. In present day Ethiopia, Gǝʿǝz is predominantly studied in the Qǝne schools of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahǝdo Church. Gǝʿǝz served as the oficial court language for many centuries, but was replaced by Amharic in the thirteenth century; however, until the coming of Amharic literature in the nineteenth century, it remained the writen prestige language. Moreover, Gǝʿǝz is stil the lingua sacra of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥǝdo Church, and serves as a medium of instruction for different ecclesiastical disciplines such as Qǝne (Gǝʿǝz poetry), Zema (Yaredic hymn), Aqqwaqwam (Yaredic chanting), Tǝrgwame-mäṣaḥǝft (exegesis of biblical and canonical scriptures) and Qǝddase (liturgy). Currently, there is a strong tendency within the church to consider the language as a priceless heritage and to protect it ac-cordingly. Therefore the church has an unbroken interest in preserving and expanding Gǝʿǝz studies in many parts of the country. The work under review deals with the classification of Gǝʿǝz verbs based on the methodologies applied in the Qǝne schools. It is the result of the author’s doctoral research in Semitic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, supervised by Prof. Dr. Rainer Voigt and defended in 2013. For its completion, the author consulted various printed texts and hand-writen copies that deal with grammatical issues of Gǝʿǝz, as wel as diferent dictionaries and grammars prepared by local and foreign scholars. In addition to this, the author conducted fieldwork in diferent places, particularly in Baḥǝr Dar and Addis Abäba. The duration of the fieldwork is not mentioned (pp. 18, 165). The author himself is a Qǝne scholar and has a strong connec-tion with the tradition of the schools. Thus, his education and experience have genuinely helped him to present extensive explanations and practical details on selected points. The book is an important contribution and helps 

Aaron Michael Butts, ed., Semitic Languages in Contact

Aethiopica

Review of Aaron Michael Butts, ed., Semitic Languages in Contact, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 82 (Leiden–Boston, MA: E.J. Brill, 2015)

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Review of Aaron Michael Butts, ed., Semitic Languages in Contact

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Aaron Michael Butts, ed., Semitic Languages in Contact

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