Jump to content

Talk:Habesha peoples/Archives/2020/July

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Ge'ez?

Our lead paragraph implies that the term comes from Ge'ez. That seems contrary to actual etymological accounts. No cognate appears in Wolf Leslau's Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez or in the glossary of Thomas Lambdin's Introduction to Classical Ethiopic—which is larger than necessary for the textbook alone as it's meant to address a student's needs early on. I know that there's a significant Amharic Ge'ez lexicographical tradition—that what's available is not the be all & end all of the Ge'ez vocabulary. But given that the etymology of this term is (probably) from outside Ge'ez, it seems relevant to ask: Do we actually have a source for the four Ge'ez forms given at the head of this article? Can anyone provide a citation? Pathawi (talk) 15:41, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure about the Ge'ez etymology, but I had brought it up 14 years ago where someone replied, as you mentioned, that it isn't (and, they claim, probably wouldn't be) in the Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (see Talk:Habesha peoples/Archive 1#Habesha etymology). As for the various spellings, I had tried to address this in a previous edit (20:59, 1 April 2020‎‎) which was rather quickly reverted (16:42, 2 April 2020‎). I am told that any of these "look" correct (and the Amharic Wikipedia article uses both "ሀበሻ" and "ሃበሻ"), but for what it's worth, the Habesha Brewery and a local business called Habesha Market both use the "ሐበሻ" spelling. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:19, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
P.S. The Habesha and Ethiopian, etymological connection section was presented as a quotation, implying that it was directly quoted from the George Hatke source, but this exact text does not appear there. Instead, it was apparently copy-pasted from Ethiopia#Etymology and, for some reason, formatted as a quotation (see diff). (And then, I'm compelled to point out, this edit made it seem as though the cited source makes mention of "the Habesha community" when, in fact, it does not.) I've made an edit to clarify (and make it compliant with) Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia and removed the direct quote. The cited source (at least how I read it) says that Ḥbšt and Ḥbśt are Ge'ez renderings (transliterations?) of the Greek "Aἰθιόποι". -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:51, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Inaccurate information on Habesha peoples

Hello Wikipedia, can you fix some of the issues on this Wikipedia page, the information stated in this article is inaccurate, it doesn’t adequately describe how Habesha peoples identify in real life. The resources bellow explain how Habesha identity works in real life.

  • Goitom, Mary (2017). “‘Unconventional Canadians’: Second-generation ‘Habesha’ youth and belonging in Toronto, Canada”. Global Social Welfare. Springer. 4 (4): 179–190. doi:10.1007/s40609–017–0098–0. [31.031.131.231.3] . [York University] .
  • Goitom, M. (2012). Becoming habesha: The journey of second-generation ethiopian and eritrean youth in canada (Order No. NR91110). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1252883321). [University of Calgary] .
  • Oliphant, S. M. (2015). The impact of social networks on the immigration experience of ethiopian women (Order №3705725). Available from Ethnic NewsWatch; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1691345929). [32.032.132.232.332.432.5] . [Catholic University of America].
  • Diversity makes a differences. (2012, Feb). Northwest Asian Weekly. Available from ProQuest .

Afeworki, N. G. (2018). Eritrean nationalism and the digital diaspora: Expanding diasporic networks via twitter (Order №10745022). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2015164934).

WhatsUpAfrica (talk) 04:58, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  • We can't "fix" things like that. What you can do is make edits, with secondary sources. Drmies (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @Drmies: note that the OP of this section has been blocked for block evasion by sock. Their unblock request has already been turned down, but feel free to revise it. Otherwise I'd hat this section (and other contributions by this editor on this page, in order not to lose further time on it). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:39, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Francis Schonken, you and I edit-conflicted with reverting the rant by the other sock, whom I just blocked--and confirmed as a sock of WhatsUpAfrica. I saw WhatsUpAfrica a few days ago and was hoping it wouldn't be another one, but unfortunately it was. The problem I have here is that this sourcing may well be helpful; that it was supplied by an utter jerk doesn't make it less valuable. So I'll leave that up to you. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:46, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
        • Well, I'm used to you being a bit more discriminate about sources usable for mainspace content: if you can find anything in them that should be transferred to the article, please go ahead. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:56, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
          • Ha, I'm not about to write this content. I wouldn't accept the dissertations, but there's stuff from The Atlantic, and a journal article. The sock we're dealing with is obviously not an FA writer. What I mean is, if you want to hat this, I will not object--if you indicate in the title that there's some possible sourcing in here. Drmies (talk) 16:13, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • The thing is, Pathawi had already graciously offered to improve the article, incorporating at least some of the sockpuppets' requested sources. But rather than reply to Pathawi's posts, they (generally) just keep adding new talk page sections. But anyway, an effort to incorporate these sources was/is already under way. And in spite of what these account(s) say, I've said all along (this is at least the fourth or fifth time, on this page or elsewhere) that this information could and should be included, if it can be cited properly, and Pathawi has already demonstrated a way to do so. (Might as well point out that I had advocated for this position and added the information myself back in 2007, but it was later removed as an unreliable source. Which it probably was.) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:20, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • My intention at this point is to proceed with that, but I'm trying to clean sections up a little before I add to them. I've been moving slowly because I'm verifying cited sources one by one. (I don't normally do this, but poor citation practice are clearly such a problem on this page.) I'm definitely not trying to call dibs on this project if anyone else is itching to read the sources & write the content. Pathawi (talk) 18:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oliphant is almost completely irrelevant—her dissertation was just tossed in as citational padding. She's mentioned twice in the Usage section together with Goitom; I'm going to read thru Goitom this morning then rewrite that section. Sorry: Moving slowly. Pathawi (talk) 14:18, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

If I read it correctly, the observed generational shift of paradigm about the usage of the term is mainly/exclusively a diaspora thing, right? In that case, it should be made explicit both in the lede and the section "Usage". An ongoing discourse in the diaspora community should not outweigh common usage in the part of the world where most of the people concerned actually live.

Btw, I can't avoid the impression that the divergent usage actually means we're dealing with two distincts topics, which might deserve separate coverage. –Austronesier (talk) 12:09, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I suspect that's the case, but I also suspect that the article reads that way because the studies about the term's usage happen to have been made abroad. I'm not sure that we can say it's a diaspora usage. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 14:00, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't have Springer access to check what Goitom writes about it, and I don't trust the plagiarized and tampered version by the bogus Academia.edu account. I'll just wait and see what Pathawi makes of it, an editor whom I know from their awesome work in Beja-related topics. –Austronesier (talk) 14:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I just realized/remembered that I (and, presumably, other Wikipedia editors?) have access to JSTOR, ProQuest etc. via the WP:LIBRARY. The 2017 Goitom article is on ProQuest. (The link is here, but I'm not sure whether it will work; there are some steps for getting one's account set up.) Let me know if you can't access it that way. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@Gyrofrog: Great, thanks, it works! I've had Jstor, Muse, Oxford access for some time, and recently got notified about the single sign-on access to WP:LIBRARY, but haven't tried it until this one. –Austronesier (talk) 19:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: with everything else that has happened here since March, my initial, gut reaction to "2 topics might deserve separate coverage" was, um, uncharitable — but I think I see your point. Although, I'm not sure it's the same point that you were trying to make. (←That probably didn't make sense.) Anyway: "Abyssinia" and "Abyssinians" are derived from "Habesha"; I don't imagine there's any dispute over this. Presumably "Habesha", in the context of the place named "Habesha or Abyssinia" in this map from the 1880s, is different from the context in which the term was used in the 20th century, and/or from the context in which many Habesha use it today. I don't think that's disputed, either. So — in that sense — I can see how we're covering (at least?) two different "Habesha" topics. Now, I'm not sure if you were suggesting splitting this coverage into two+ articles — I think in the past we've seen dueling POV-forks (at one point there was a Geez People article), although that's not a reason not to try it. But I think, at the moment, if this article doesn't completely account for the various interpretations/uses of "Habesha", then it's on the right track to do so, thanks to Pathawi's efforts. (I had something longer than this written out that probably made even less sense than this; it's been a long couple of days...) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@Gyrofrog: Yes I can imagine your gut reaction, especially after looking at the history of sick POV-pushing in the past ("sick" is for the manner of pushing). And no, I don't go as far as to say that two(+) articles are a good idea, because of the vagueness of the whole gamut of usages, which applies to both the "traditional/historical/local" usage(s) and the "reclaimed" usage(s) by younger members of the diaspora community (I had the idea of "reclaimed" in my mind yesterday, but couldn't find the exact word, so I was happy eventually to find the word in Goitom's paper). However, I think we should keep the different gamuts explicitly apart, because if we vaguely flip-flop around between different usages of the term, we invite both indiscriminate WP:coatracking/WP:synthing (cf. the constant misuse of genetic studies in ethnic articles) and endless WP:POV-pushing (to "fix" a perceived "bias"). To exemplify the problem: the lede uses the term "pan-ethnic" and "meta-ethnic" quite indiscriminately in one breath, even though "pan-ethnic" exactly describes the phenomenon described by Goitom (Panethnicity is predominantly used in the current academic and wider discourse for diaspora communities), whereas "meta-ethnic" better fits with the "traditional" usage of the term.
Given the fact that the phenomenon of using "Habesha" as an affirmative community token is relatively new and still somewhat fluid (which is visible in some comments in the archived sections), the "traditional" usage is IMO better kept as the primary topic of the article (with all necessary caveats), and the discussion about the "reclaimed" pan-ethnic usage should receive a short section of its own (and a sentence of its own in the lede). –Austronesier (talk) 07:45, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Austronesier, I agree the pan-ethnic usage should be in the lede. The other thing I think should be mentioned up front is "Abyssinia/Abyssinians" since Abyssinian people redirects to this article. Something as simple as "Habesha people..., or Abyssinians, ..." or something to the effect of "historically called Abyssinians", "the historical exonym Abyssinians" etc. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
I also agree that the broader sense of the term merits a mention in the lede & a paragraph under Usage. I don't think there's actually reason at this point for it to receive more than that—either on this page or as a page of its own. This may change, but I don't see that there's substantive material to support more at this point. Pathawi (talk) 16:01, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Habesha peoples (Ge'ez: ሓበሻ, ሐበሻ, romanized: Ḥabäša, Ḥäbäša; Amharic: ሀበሻ, ሃበሻ, romanized: Häbäša, Habäša; etymologically related via Latin to English "Abyssinia") is a term most frequently employed to refer to Semitic language-speaking Christian peoples of highland Ethiopia and Eritrea. Recently, the term has been applied by some within diasporic communities to refer to all people of Eritrean or Ethiopian origin.

Thanks! Minor point, but since it's a redirect target, shouldn't "Abyssinia[ns]" be in bold? The only thing I'd suggest about the wording is perhaps change "most frequently employed to refer to" to "that traditionally [or historically] refers to". Although either is more neutral than "a term that refers to", which I momentarily considered as seeming more straightforward. I'm still not sure about the different renderings in Ge'ez/Amharic (like I mentioned in #Ge'ez?; guess we can try and figure that out later). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
For example: Habesha peoples (Ge'ez: ሓበሻ, ሐበሻ, romanized: Ḥabäša, Ḥäbäša; Amharic: ሀበሻ, ሃበሻ, romanized: Häbäša, Habäša; etymologically related via Latin to English "Abyssinia" and "Abyssinians") is a term that historically refers to Semitic language-speaking Christian peoples of highland Ethiopia and Eritrea. Recently, the term has been applied by some within diasporic communities to refer to all people of Eritrean or Ethiopian origin.
...but I'm not honestly sure it "looks" better. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
I prefer Pathawi's proposal. "Historically" followed by "recently" might give the impression that the first use is obsolescent, while "most frequently" followed by "recently" shows that both meanings exist and the second meaning still is an emergent phenomenon. Bold is for common alternative names, but not obligatory because of an existing redirect. –Austronesier (talk) 20:43, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Sounds good. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:44, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Okay. I think I know what's going on with Ge'ez & Amharic. RIE 185—the ʕEzana inscription—is transcribed by Alexander Sima as having Ge'ez ḥbśt where Sabaic has ḥbštm ('Die „sabäische" Version von König ʿĒzānās Trilingue RIE 185 und RIE 185bis' in Archiv für Orientforschung vol. 50). Rainer Voigt gives the Ethiopic spelling for the same as ሐበሠተ, which would be *ḥäbäśätä, but the inscription is unvocalised: Voigt interprets this as ḥäbäśät, but I'm not clear on what evidence supports that vocalisation ('Language, Script And Society In The Axumite Kingdom' in Ityop̣is, 2016 extra issue II). Francis Breyer gives RIE 189 (also of ʕEzana) as having the same form, but vocalises it ḥabäśät ('The Ancient Egyptian Etymology of Ḥabašāt "Abessinia"' in the same issue of Ityop̣is). Breyer doesn't say this, but it looks like he bases his vocalisation on Tigrinya ሓበሻ ḥabäša.
Unfortunately, I can't currently get access to the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica which has an article by Walter W. Müller on the term Ḥabašat in South Arabian sources. In Kane's Amharic dictionary, two terms are given that are clear cognates: ሐበሻ (ḥäbäša) & አበሻ ('äbäša). Kane states that he employs etymological spellings, rather than those that reflect only the distinctions of modern Amharic pronunciation. Kane gives [h] (usually spelled ሀ) instead of [ḥ] for the pronunciation of the first of these, which makes sense: Amharic doesn't have /ḥ/. This appears, then, to be an etymological spelling which reflects the same spoken term as the version we have on the page right now as ሀበሻ: Ge'ez /ḥ/ → Amharic /h/. (The ሀበሻ spelling comes from Amharic Wikipedia: They appear to have opted for a spelling that reflects current pronunciation rather than etymology.) One note to clarify this spelling: Ge'ez doesn't have ሸ /šä/; Amharic doesn't have ሠ /śä/. Amharic words stemming from Ge'ez ሠ realise that consonant as /sä/ (rather than /śä/), so the spelling ሐበሣ [ḥäbäśa] in Ge'ez would be [häbäsa] in Amharic. Given that the Amharic word is [häbäša], the spelling ሐበሻ is as etymologically close to Ge'ez ሐበሣ as Kane can get without the spelling becoming misleading.
I see adequate evidence, then, for saying that the Amharic term is ሐበሻ (häbäša) or አበሻ ('äbäša) [both from Kane's dictionary, tho I've modified the Romanisation], that the Tigrinya term is ሓበሻ (ḥabäša), & that the Ge'ez term appears in unvocalised inscriptions as ሐበሠተ, which might be either ḥäbäśät or ḥabäśät.
I would feel happier seeing some source that actually gave a vocalised form of ḥbśt for Ge'ez. Pathawi (talk) 22:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Habesha_peoples/Archives/2020/July&oldid=1252312886"