UniLang

Here is a place to learn and discuss Amharic (አማርኛ), Tigrinya (ትግርኛ), and Tigre (ትግረ) which are all Ethiopic Semetic languages spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea. This means that they are related to Arabic and Hebrew. However they have their own distinct 'flavor' if you will. And just for the record I am by no means fluent in any of these languages. But I am in the process of learning Amharic, as well as Tigre and Blin using the links below.

Until I (or anyone else for that matter ) get a chance to start any lessons in Tigrinya or Amharic here are some links to Tigre and Blin lessons. Blin (ብሊና) is a Cushtic language spoken in Eritrea.

Blin lessons : http://www.people.vcu.edu/~gasmerom/Eri ... ages/blin/

Tigre Lessons: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~gasmerom/Eri ... ges/tigre/

Unfortunately the lessons are all in romanized form, but they are still quite good.

amharic is so fucking amazing.

sthg for the script
http://members.aol.com/w4z5m4/wazema.html

general info
http://www.abyssiniagateway.net/info/bender.html

taken from yamada language center

radio
http://www.voanews.com/horn/amharic_audio.cfm

maybe someone has got an online copy of one of these books:
[url=http://snow.prohosting.com/sprach/english/amh.htm]Course: Colloquial Amharic
Course: Spoken Amharic
Software: Talk now! Amharic
Lonely planet Amharic phrasebook
Amharic-English-Amharic dictionary
[/url]

I love Amharic - this is wooonderful!

yabba wrote:maybe someone has got an online copy of one of these books:
Course: Colloquial Amharic

I don't have an online/electronic version, but I do have the original book itself along with the cds/tapes.

I also agree that Amharic and the other Ethiopic languages are quite fasinating. I love the script that is used for those languages, even though it is quite complex.

Hi guys! I was wondering if someone could translate a couple of words from english to amharic?

Love

Daniel Sdogati(my name)

Thanks in advance

Daniel

ፍቅር

"Fəqərə" (above) is "love". I don't know how to translate your name because I don't actually know feedel (the Amharic alphabet) yet. I am a very beginning student, studying on my own with "Let's Speak Amharic" book/CD package by Bezza Tesfaw Ayalew and Charles Isenberg's "Amharic Grammar".

For word replacement as above, try www.amharicdictionary.com/ It has some sound samples, too, which are quite helpful.

ሰላም! (sälam - hello)
I've only now found this thread I've studied some Amharic from lessons in a Yahoo! group (you have to register, but it's for free of course), but except for the lessons posted there the group seemed more about religious stuff.

Ah, Banrak, I guess your name will be written in feedel like that (assuming it's pronounced as written):
ዳኒኤል ስዶጋቲ
I just typed it in the Amharic dictionary mentioned by dzheremi

ሰላም to all speakers and students of አማርኛ! I am studying the script at the moment but have become confused about the differences in pronunciation of the consonants, being unfamiliar with IPA.

Could anyone point out to me the difference in pronunciation of ሀ, ሐ, and ኀ? And of ሠ, ሰ, ጸ and ፀ?

Thanks in advance for all help, ፈረንጅ and ሐበሻ!

(If I have grossly mispelled any bits of script I have written, or put something unintentionally stupid please tell me! )

Welcome Mehitabel! I'm afraid I don't see any ሐበሻ or other Amharic-speakers here... hopefully we'll have some in the future, this will make learning the language easier
Regarding pronunciation, you're probably confused not only b/c of IPA but also b/c of Amharic having lost some sounds from Ge'ez, resulting in different letters often being pronounced identically. So:
ሀ, ሐ, ኀ - h (maybe more like German ch, Greek χ, I'm not sure)
ሠ, ሰ - s
ጸ, ፀ - ts
You might want to check out this page, it shows the sounds for Amharic, Ge'ez and many many other writing systems.

Thanks very much for that! This will make reading things a lot easier, but writing things a lot more difficult...is there any pattern as to which homophonic character you use when?

We must find some ሐበሻ...this will indeed make things easier

I'm afraid there's no general pattern that I know of... If those letters are part of a root then of course the same letter would appear in any word based on that root. Sometimes my knowledge of Hebrew helps, when cognate Hebrew and Amharic roots use cognate letters. Hebrew also has several homophones for the same reasons as Amharic, and whether you're a child learning to write or a foreigner, you just learn them by practicing and by reading a lot, seeing the words again and again. And an English speaker like you has no place to complain about writing problems!

Oh, babelfish, you are so cruel to me

Is there ever going to be an አማርኛ forum here?

Oh, my interest of unusual languages starts to blossom again

I'll look at these pages after school!

OT.: So, how is Bath? Lot's of rock buildings... Was there this summer

EDIT: Or not... I did not like the use of capitalization in Tigre

Mehitabel wrote:Oh, babelfish, you are so cruel to me

Is there ever going to be an አማርኛ forum here?

አላውቅም, እኔ ትንሽ ልጻፍ እችላለሁ...
(I don't know, I can write a bit...)

I am so terrible at reading.

I MUST WORK HARDER.

Bath is still nice, thank you!

It's me again. What glyph should I use for pluralising something ("očč")? For instance "betocc" (houses) would I simply write "ቤቶቀ" or is that incredibly, incredibly wrong?

Also if you are pluralising an object which is also possessed, do you put the "očč" after or before the possessive bit, ie. "betoccwa" or "bettwayocc" (I'm trying to write "her houses")?

Thanks

I've seen some PDF document in Amharic (something about Visas to Australia, translated... ) and the plural was indeed written simply with "occ" - except that it's ቤቶች
According to the grammar lessons I've read, the possessive suffix is added after the plural marker, so it's ቤቶችዋ or ቤቶቿ (about that I'm not sure... )

removed

oooooooooooooooooooooo speechless...