Re: [NATLANG] Amharic and Irish help

Mark J. Reed wrote:


> I'm trying to learn some Amharic
Ah, that's a language!

> so I
> already got to practice my all-but-completely-forgotten Russian on him...)
Then you are one more candidate for a russophone Conlang workshops I'm going
to create one day...

> On the web, resources seem to be lacking.
Yes, they are very scarse. Fortunately, I have a copy of printed Amharic
grammar essay - feel free to ask (better privately).

> I did find a guide to the
> phonology (using SAMPA, even), but the mapping is only to the Amharic
> abugida, and there seem to be a variety of Roman transcription systems in
> use which I'm somewhat at a loss to decipher.
Yeah, that's a problem. Even more sophisticated sources use different
transliteration schemes.

> For instance, the travlang.com Basic Words list gives
> "Amessagganalehugn" for "Thank you".   Are the doubled consonants
> geminate?
There is gemination in Amharic, it is not marked in writing, it's phonemic
status is not clear, but those consonants are definitely geminates.

> What am I to do with final "gn" - is that /gn=/ or a
> Romancish transcription of /J/?
This is a more or less traditional rendering of /J/.

> Both |a|
> and |e| appear with macrons; did Ge'ez have phonemic length?
Ge'ez did have. Amharic has none.

> Perhaps
> an |a| with macron is [a], vs unmacronned [6], while macronned |e| is [e],
vs
> unmacronned [@]?
Ge'ez > Amharic:
/a:/ > /a/ ; /a/ > /E/ ; /e:/ > /e/ + palatalization of the previous
consonant; /e/ > /@/.
/@/ is colored differently in different environment, and is realised as /I/,
/U/, /i\/ or /@/.

> Thanks in advance.
You are welcome.

-- Yitzik

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