Judeo-Ge'ez
Judeo-Ge'ez (Ge'ez: የፈላሻዎች አፍ. Hebrew: יהודי אתיופי) is a historical dialect spoken by the Beta Israel community that is derived from Biblical Hebrew[1][2], today it is mainly spoken by the Ethiopian Jewish Kahenat, (which is a word coined by the Judeo Ge'ez dialect), also written across several religious Ethiopian Jewish texts and holy chants. The dialect has historically been documented by numerous independent travellers and scholars who have visited the region at various times throughout history. This dialect represents a mixture of Geʽez and Hebrew and is primarily employed during religious ceremonies. It is believed to have developed around the 8th to 9th centuries AD,[1][3] being diverged from Hebrew and Ge'ez. Today the language is written in both the Geʽez and Hebrew alphabet.
Usage
[edit]Judeo-Ge'ez is the liturgical subset dialect spoken by the Beta Israel community, and has been recorded to be in use throughout time by many independent travellers and scholars who went to the region at the several different points in history. Judeo-Ge'ez is used between the mixation of the languages of Geʽez and Hebrew and is mainly used in religious ceremonies and thought to be developed around the 8-9th century AD.[1] This is characterised by the many Hebrew words and words with a Hebraic root is used within their religious text and significant religious chants, such words can be found in the several religious books such as The Orit (from Imperial Aramaic: אורייה, romanized: ˀorāytā, lit. 'written law, Torah') or Octateuch: the Five Books of Moses plus Joshua, Judges and Ruth. The Orit possesses very ancient Jewish rituals which is called from its original name, e.g. numerous Niddah laws, purification, etc. The rest of the Bible has secondary importance. They possess the Book of Lamentations which is directly taken from the traditional Hebrew canon hence has immense Hebraic influence, as well as of the Book of Jeremiah.
Many of the months that the Beta Israel followed had came from Hebrew words such as "Nisan", "Ab", "Lul" and "T'heshvan".
In the 1930s, Jones and Monroe argued that the chief Semitic languages of Ethiopia may suggest an antiquity of Judaism in Ethiopia. "There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion, such as the words for Hell, idol, Easter, purification, and alms, are of Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge'ez version made from the Septuagint."[2]
Deuterocanonical books that also make up part of the canon are Sirach, Judith, Esdras 1 and 2, the Books of Meqabyan, Jubilees, Baruch 1 and 4, Enoch, and the testaments of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Many of these books differ substantially from the similarly numbered and named texts (such as "Maccabbees"), though some of the Ge'ez works are clearly dependent on those texts. Others appear to have different ancient literary and oral origins, which has a clear pathway link to the Hebraic language.[1]
History
[edit]
In the 9th-century AD Jewish merchant and traveler named Eldad ha-Dani was the story that he was a descendant of the Tribe of Dan, hence his surname.[4] According to his log, Ha-Dani had come upon a lost fragment of his tribe which together, with descendants from the tribes of Asher, Gad and Naphtali, had its own independent Jewish state in Eastern Africa. spoke about an independent Jewish in East Africa which was pinpointed to be The Kingdom of Simien, and he claimed to be a Citizen of the Beta Israel state. It is noted at this time he wrote the Jews of his community[4] had Hebrew prayers and religious ceremonies.[5]
A visiting Portuguese traveller claimed in the 17th century that they were still speaking corrupt Hebrew and using it in synagogue services.[6] In the late 17th century, a rabbi from Vienna named Shlomo arrived in Ethiopia with Rabbinic literature recording that he was able to understand the Beta Israel through bits and pieces of Hebrew and was able to effectively communicate with them on religious teachings, until he was exiled by the emperor Susenyos I under the judgement of the Portuguese.[7]
During the 18th and 19th centuries the Beta Israel suffered a further decline. In the 18th century, the Beta Israel community was ravaged by the Mahdist army, which led to a loss of a significant amount of texts and books, which included numerous delicate pieces of knowledge carried throughout generations and completely devastated the community; this led for a partial assimilation by the Ethiopian emperor Yohannes IV who took advantage and tried to proselytize and persecute the community, leading to a continuous loss of this language. However, according to Steven Kaplan, traces of Judeo-Ge'ez influence can be traced throughout its holy texts today.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e Kaplan, Steven (2009). ""The Literature of the Beta Israel (Falasha): A Survey of a Biblical-Hebraic Tradition"".
- ^ a b A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, A History of Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), p. 40.
- ^ Gottheil, Richard (2022). "ELDAD BEN MAHLI HA-DANI".
- ^ a b Blair, Gabby (2015). "The Origin of Beta Israel".
- ^ Kaplan, Steven. (1992). "The Beta Israel: Falasha in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-4848-0".
- ^ Spolsky, Bernard (27 March 2014). "Languages of the Jews".
- ^ "The Expulsion of the Jews", City and the Crown, Purdue University Press, pp. 123–136, 1993-06-01, doi:10.2307/j.ctt6wq5z9.12, retrieved 2024-09-30