Miran, Jonathan

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       Aethiopica 08 (2005) International Journal of Ethiopian and Eri-trean Studies     ________________________________________________________________  JONATHAN MIRAN  Dissertation abstract ‘Facing the Land, Facing the Sea: Commercial Transformation and Urban Dynamics in the Red Sea Port of Massawa, 1840s–1900s’ Dissertation at the Department of History, Michigan State University, East Lansing, defended on January 9, 2004 to obtain a Ph.D. of History  Aethiopica 08 (2005), 294–295 ISSN: 1430–1938 ________________________________________________________________  Published by Universität Hamburg Asien Afrika Institut, Abteilung Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik Hiob Ludolf Zentrum für Äthiopistik   Dissertation abstracts Aethiopica 8 (2005) 294 In addition, Zay possesses further grammatical features which have not yet been described for other Ethiosemitic languages. Of particular importance is the existance of the features [+round] and [+front] as non-segmental phone-mes in Zay. Furthermore, the syntax of Zay is much more complex than of related Ethiosemitic languages. Zay exhibits a syntactical structure containing obligatory focus marking and an additional marking of declarative sentences. While in GunnÃn-Gurage languages markers of illocutionary force are quite common, a syntactic structure involving obligatory focus marking is well-known from Cushitic languages. Both syntactic strategies are unified in Zay. Such a combination of focus and illocutionary forces morphemes in syntax is not known for any Cushitic or Ethiosemitic language.  JONATHAN MIRAN, ߇Facing the Land, Facing the Sea: Commercial Transformation and Urban Dynamics in the Red Sea Port of Massawa, 1840s–1900s߈, Dissertation at the Department of History, Michigan State University, East Lansing, defended on January 9, 2004 to obtain a Ph.D. of History. This dissertation examines the making of a complex Red Sea urban coastal society in Massawa (in present day Eritrea) in the second half of the nine-teenth century. As a centuries-old port town Massawa߈s traditional role and raison d’être has been to mediate between multiple commercial spheres connecting regions of the northeast African interior and beyond it with regions of the Middle East and South Asia. This study examines how a par-ticular new conjuncture of political, economic, technological and migratory factors in the wider Red Sea and western Indian Ocean area in the middle decades of the century transformed Massawa. It re-organized the structure of its commercial relationships, which, as a result, shaped the particular social and cultural make-up of the port-town߈s inhabitants.  At the heart of the study is an examination of the town߈s leading families who traced their origins both to areas of the northeast African interior and to a variety of overseas locations and who operated in the port-town principally as merchants, brokers and entrepreneurs. This ߋaristocratic classߌ, as one  Italian colonial official qualified it, dominated the town߈s legal, commercial and religious institutions and developed a strong sense of local urban yet so-phisticated worldly identity reflecting a distinct sense of esprit de corps. They particularly stressed their refined urban culture, a strong link to the wider community of Muslim believers (umma), and a sense of connectedness to Arab history and culture. I analyze the social, religious and material bases of their power (or different forms of capital) as well as the complex social and Dissertation abstracts Aethiopica 8 (2005) 295 cultural mechanisms and strategies that enabled them to perform and protect their role as a flexible janus-faced community simultaneously facing land and sea but remaining distinct from both. I thus reveal the inner structure of a community of mediators, tracing the chains and networks of linkages that connected the town߈s hinterlands to its forelands.  The study refutes perceptions viewing Massawa as ߋalienߌ to its environ-ment by historically contextualizing its specificity and deconstructing the development of its culturally outgoing dispositions, but at the same time lo-cally rooted social realities in a period of great political, economic and social change. The study presents a more local/region-based historical perspective in an arena of northeastern African historiography that is still being vigorously debated by scholars almost entirely in nationalist discourses. It also links the Eritrean-Ethiopian region ߃ traditionally perceived as somewhat isolated  from its broader environment ߃ with the wider world of the Red Sea and In-dian Ocean. The study is based on a wide variety of 19th-century European sources, Italian colonial archival materials, Arabic language sources, oral data collected in Eritrea, and a newly-discovered collection of legal records from Massawa߈s Islamic court. JOACHIM CRASS, Das K ʾabeena – Deskriptive Grammatik einer hochlandostkuschitischen Sprache. Dissertation accepted at the Fachbereich 14, Philologie II of the Johannes Gutenberg-UniversitÃt Mainz, defended on December 22, 2004 to obtain a Dr. phil. degree of Philosophy. Kʝabeena is a Highland-East-Cushitic language spoken by some 35.000 speakers. The settling area of the people is located in and around the town of Wolkite, a town situated some 160 km south west of Addis Ababa on the main road to Jimma. The closest related languages are Alaaba, Kambaata and Tʝimbaaro. The presented data were collected during four field stays between December 2000 and March 2003. The data are described by using structural and functional approaches. This language possesses several interesting features of which some are found scarcely in other languages of the world. On the level of phonology, a striking feature is the occurrence of five whispered vowels. These whispered vowels are allophones of the five voiced short vowels a, e, i, o, and u. In two of the 13 flexion classes of nouns, the whispered vowels are the only feature distinguishing case. Another important phonological feature is stress accent. All word classes have an unmarked position of the accent: e.g. one group of 

‘Facing the Land, Facing the Sea: Commercial Transformation and Urban Dynamics in the Red Sea Port of Massawa, 1840s–1900s’

Aethiopica

       Aethiopica 08 (2005) International Journal of Ethiopian and Eri-trean Studies     ________________________________________________________________  JONATHAN MIRAN  Dissertation abstract ‘Facing the Land, Facing the Sea: Commercial Transformation and Urban Dynamics in the Red Sea Port of Massawa, 1840s–1900s’ Dissertation at the Department of History, Michigan State University, East Lansing, defended on January 9, 2004 to obtain a Ph.D. of History  Aethiopica 08 (2005), 294–295 ISSN: 1430–1938 ________________________________________________________________  Published by Universität Hamburg Asien Afrika Institut, Abteilung Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik Hiob Ludolf Zentrum für Äthiopistik   Facing the Land, Facing the Sea Commercial Transformation and Urban Dynamics in the Red Sea Port of Massawa, 1840s–1900sraison d’êtreesprit de corpsummaDas K ʾabeena – Deskriptive Grammatik einer hochlandostkuschitischen Sprachea e i o  u

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‘Facing the Land, Facing the Sea: Commercial Transformation and Urban Dynamics in the Red Sea Port of Massawa, 1840s–1900s’

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