Compare Egypt, vol. vii. pp. 730-748; Abyssinia, vol. i., and the woιks of Salt, &c., there referred to; and in addition Lenormant, Manuel de l' histoire orientale ; Records of the Past, vol. iv.; Vivien de Saint Martin, “Éclaire, geogr. et hist, sur Γinscription d'Adulis,' ’ in Journal Asiatique, 1863, published separately in 1864, and his Le Nord de l'Afrique dans l’antiquité grecque et romaine, 1863.

Ethiopian, or Geez, is the name given in modern philology to a language of the Semitic family, which is still used in Abyssinia for literary and ecclesiastical purposes. It shows the closest affinity in grammatical structure with Arabic. The verb has ten conjugations, of which two are peculiar, and the remaining eight analogous to as many of the ten Arabic conjugations. The noun presents a greater similarity to the Hebrew noun, though at the same time it has decidedly Arabic characteristics. There is no dual form either in noun or verb. About a third of the vocables of the language have been traced to Arabic roots, while others find their counterparts and kindred in Aramaic and Hebrew. A considerable number of words have been imported from foreign tongues—some as mere exotics by translators and scholars, but many others through direct popular intercourse with foreign nations. Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek have been chiefly laid under contribution, the last especially for words technical to Christianity. Of course it is often difficult to decide in the case of Aramaic and Arabic vocables whether they are real borrowings since the differentiation of the languages, or are part of the original common stock of the Semitic. There are at least two modern languages which have sprung from the ancient Geez, distinguished in modern philology by the conventional names of Tigrina and Tigré, both derived from the native Tigraj, which is applied to either indifferently. The Tigré, spoken by the half-nomadic races on the frontiers of Nubia and Sennaaris, at least among one tribe, the Habab, extremely like the parent speech; the Tigrina, on the other hand, is corrupt both in its sounds, its inflexions, and its vocabulary, and bears evidence more especially of Λmharic influence. Tigré has been very partially investigated: Merx published, in 1868, a vocabulary and grammatical sketch; Munziger’s vocabulary is printed in Dillmann’s Lexicon; and a Tigré translation of the gospel of Luke by Kugler and Isenberg exists in manuscript. The Tigrina, or rather the Adoan dialect of the Tigrina, was treated pretty fully by Dr Praetorius in hi3 Grammatik der Tigijüa Sprache, 1872, and he has since published, in the Ztschrft. d. Deut. Morg. Ges., 1874, a paper on the two dialects of Hamâsên and Tanben, which differ considerably in vocabulary as well as in pronunciation, but are mutually intelligible. Another dialect mainly of Ethiopie character is spoken by the people of Harrar, who form a small Semitic enclave in the Hamitic population to the east of southern Abyssinia. Its peculiarities have been investigated by Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa, 1856, and by Praetorius in Ztschr. d. Deut. Μorg. Ges., 1869. The affinity of the Geez alphabet has given rise to no small discussion: Ludolf brought it into comparison with the Samaritan, De Lacy with the Greek and Coptic, and Lepsius with the Devanâgari, but in the opinion of most Semitic investigators, its Semitic origin has been proved by the discovery of the cognate Himyaritic alphabet or musnad (cf. Renan, Hist, des Langues Sémitiques, p. 308).

The literature of the Ethiopian language, like that of Armenian, is almost exclusively Christian, and, indeed, with comparatively slight exceptions, theological or ecclesiastical. Only a few inscriptions have been preserved of the pre-Christian period, the most notable being those of Axum and Adulis, but it is not improbable that light will be ob tained on the earlier times from the inscriptions of Southern Arabia, which are beginning to receive special attention. The language of the Axum inscriptions is the same as that of the Bible, and contains the Ambaric clement. The forms of the letters vary, and the older forms are liker the Himyaritic. Vowel signs are irregularly employed, and sometimes omitted, and the numeral notation is peculiar. The work which forms the standard of a classical style is the version of the Bible. According to native tradition it was made from the Arabic, either by the first bishop Frumentius (Abba Salama) or by the “Nine Saints” of the 5th century; but internal evidence goes to prove that it was really derived from the Greek version in use in the Alexandrian church. In the course of centuries it has undergone numberless alterations at the hands of copyists; but even its most corrupted condition leaves it clear that it must have been characterized by great fidelity to the Greek text. Among the MSS. of the Old Testament Professor Dillmann distinguishes three classes: the first, which seldom occurs, preserves in the main the original translation; the second, and most numerous, contains a text revised according to the Greek; and the third has been improved by comparison with the Hebrew. Besides the ordinary canonical books of the English Bible, and the ordinary apocryphal books, with the exception of the Maccabees, the Ethiopian canon includes a number of works of various interest and value, as the Kufale or Book of the Jubilees, the Book of Enoch, and the Ascension of Isaiah,—concerning which consult Apocalyptic Literature, vol. ii. The books of the Maccabees were either never translated or have been lost, but their place has been supplied by spurious productions of the same name. Several apocryphal books are also incorporated with the New Testament, which is usually reckoned to contain 35 altogether. It was printed in 2 vols, at Rome, 1548, in the London Polyglot, and in 1830 by the London Bible Society, under the editorship of Th. P. Platt. Dillmami published the Octateuch, Leipsic, 1853, the four books of the Kings, Leipsic, 1861-1871, Enoch, 1851, and the book of the Jubilees, 1859; and R. Lawrence published the Ascensio desa ice, 1819, and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 1820, at Oxford. (Cf. Dillmann’s article on the Aethiopische Bibelübersetzung in Herzog’s Real Encyclopädie, 2d edition, 1877.) Of the numerous works which rank as ecclesiastical authorities in the Ethiopian church, it is sufficient to mention the CyrUlns, which contains, not only several dogmatie treatises of Cyril of Alexandria, but also similar productions of several others of the fathers; the Synodus, which includes, inter alia, the constitutions and statutes of the apostles, the canons of the councils of Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Sardis, Antioch, and Nicaea, an exposition of the Nicene creed, and an exposition of the Decalogue; the Mafshafa kidân za egziena Iyasus, or the Testament of our Lord Jesus (usually quoted as the Kidân), which treats of various ecclesiastical, liturgical, and eschatological matters; the Genzai or Mafshafa Genzat, and the Mafshafa Kedr, containing respectively the burial service and other sections of the ritual; the Philexmιs, a monastic treatise, probably translated into Ethiopie in the 14th century, and deriving its name from Philoxenus of Manbig. Among the poetic works are a collection of hymns in honour of the saints of the Ethiopian calendar, entitled Erziabkhαη uagsa, or “May God reign,” and the Orgaηoηa Maryams eulogy of the Virgin in rhythmic prose. The MSS. of the Mavaséet or Antipkonαry sometimes contain an interesting musical notation, which, according to native tradition, was introduced by a saint who lived in the 6th or 7th century. Certain works called Savasev or guides are devoted to the illustration of the Ethiopian language, but they are very poor, and make no distinction between grammatical, lexicographical, andhistorico-scientific information, standing thus on the same level with such a work as Elyot’s Latin Dictionary. The historical works, as for example those concerning Alexander of Macedon, are of little moment; and the real value of the lists of early kings of Ethiopia is still a matter of dispute. According to Praetorius, one of the most recent investigators (Ztschr. d. Dent. Morg. Ges., 1870), all the statements made in Ethiopian literature about the earlier history of the country have been in the main derived from Arabic legends not earlier than the 14th century, and then reconstructed with the assistance of the king lists, which alone have some degree of historic credibility. The European libraries which possess the richest collections of Ethiopian MSS. are the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Royal Library at Vienna, and the National Library at Paris. Ruppell·s collections are preserved at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and KrapfΓs at Tübingen and Würtemberg. The Bodleian catalogue was published by Dillmann, 1858; D’Abbadie’s Catalogue raisonné de manuscripts éthiopiens appeared in 1859; and a list of the Magdala collection in the British Museum, consisting of upwards of 300 MSS., was contributed to the Ztschr. d. Deut. Morg. Ges., 1870, by William Wright. Ewald gives a list of the Würtemberg MSS. in Ztschr. für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 1843, and of the Tübingen MSS. in Ztschr. d. Deut. Morg. Ges., 1847. Dorn had already made known the few works possessed by the St Petersburg library, in the Bull, de l'Λcad., May and October 1837. The Vienna collection is dealt with by Fr. Midler in Ztschr. d. Deut. Mo) g. Ges., 1862. The first scholar who turned his attention to Ethiopian was Potken of Cologne about 1513. A grammar and dictionary were published by Jacob Wemmers, a Carmelite of Antwerp in 1638; and in 1661 appeared the first edition of the great lexicon by Job Ludolf, who, in the 1702 edition, prefixed a Dissertatio de harmonia liηgu<x cetk. cum. cel. orient., and was also the author of Comment, de Hist, ceth.

Modern works connected with the subject are Hupfeldt, Exercitationes Aethiopica, 1825; Dorn, De psalterio alhiopicο, 1825; Tuch, De Aethiop. lingua sonorum proprietatibus quibusdam, 1854, and De ath. lingua son. sibilantium usu, 1854; Ewald, Ueber des athiop. Buch's Ηenοkh Entstehung, 1854; D’Abbadie, Herma Pastor Ethiopice, 1860; Schrader, De Lingua Aethiopica indole, 1860; Ceriani, Monumenta sacra et profana e codicibus Βibl. Ambrosiana, Milan, 1861; Rodwell, Aethiopic liturgies and prayers, 1865; Physiologies oethiopice, 187 7.