Amharic

 

           Machine  Transla/on  Seminar    
Alon  Har  -­‐  Carmel
 Some  Facts
•  Amharic  is  a  Semi/c  language,  Developed  in  the  
Horn  of  Africa  during  the  10th  century.  
•  It  is  the  second-­‐most  spoken  Semi/c  language  in  
the  world  (25  million),  aJer  Arabic.  
•  She  is  the  official  language  in  several  state  in    
Ethiopia.    
•  Outside  Ethiopia,  Amharic  is  the  language  of  
some  2.7  million  emigrants.    
•  It  is  wriPen  (leJ-­‐to-­‐right)  using  Amharic  Fidel,  
which  grew  out  of  the  Ge'ez  script(  Ge'ez  
abugida).  
 Alphabet  -­‐  Wri/ng  System  
 
•  Amharic  has  its  own  wri/ng  system,  a  semi-­‐
syllabic  system.  
•  There  are  33  consonant  symbols  that  have  
seven  varia/ons,    
•  Varia/ons  are  according  to  the  vowel  that  is  
coupled  with  the  consonant.  
•  each  lePer  or  symbol  usually  represents  a  
whole  syllable.  
 verbs  
•  verbs  use  a  combina/on  of  prefixes  and  
suffixes  to  indicate  the  subject,  person,  
number  and  gender.  
•  Verbs  are  derived  from  roots.  
•  Verbs  agree  with  their  subjects.  
•  Verbs  are  placed  at  the  end  of  the  sentence.    
•  Example  :  
 Nouns  
•  Nouns  may  denote  gender,  number,  
definiteness  and  direct  object  status  by  
prefixes  and  suffixes  
•  nouns  may  have  a  masculine  or  feminine  
gender  
•  The  feminine  gender  is  used  to  indicate  
female  as  well  as  smallness  and  express  
tenderness  or  sympathy  .    
•  Plurals  are  indicated  by  the  suffix  –očč  
 Word  Order  
•  The  typical  clause  order  in  Amharic  is  noun  +  
object  +  verb.    
•  Some  examples  :  
 Tools  
•  hPp://www.amharicdic/onary.com/
default.aspx  
•  hPps://glosbe.com/en/am/    
•  Babylon  
•  No  Google  translate    
 References  
•  hPp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic  
•  hPp://www.amharicmachine.com/default/
alphabet  
•  hPp://languagemanuals.weebly.com/
uploads/4/8/5/3/4853169/
amharic_language_manual.pdf