Customer Reviews

Introduction to Classical Ethiopic (GE'ez) (Harvard Semitic Studies)

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Lambdin's reclassification of Ge'ez verbs is only one of the fantastic contributions this book makes. The only drawback is that the grammar is transliterated. Consequently, when one reaches the stage of translating actual text, he or she will receive the worst kind of confusion: the disorientation of shifting mindsets. Otherwise, Lambdin's grammar is the best avaliable.

Like the next reviewer, I think that the transcription in this case is a good thing - with two-hundred-and-fifty-odd characters, it would be hard to keep things clear at the basic level. Lambdin's own suggestion that the student copy out the vocabulary list - and indeed the exercises - in the Ethiopic script helped me a lot when using this book. But a friend who really found the transliteration an issue found Mercer's now out-of-print grammar a help (I prefer Lambdin's approach).

Do look for Dillmann's Chrestomathia Aethiopica from which many of Lambdin's texts have been extracted (it is reprinted together with another anthology in 'Anthologia Aethiopica', published by Olms in Germany and available from amazon.de. It's also now downloadable from the Internet Archive site). This chrestomathy does have a Latin glossary, so for the texts outside Lambdin, a Ethiopic-English dictionary might be neccessary, probably Wolf Leslau's.

The volume listed here is the second publishing of the book, and it repairs several mistranslations and errors found in the first. Lambdin's grammar is the definitive grammar for Ge'ez, presenting a remarkably thorough grounding in the language in addition to organizing its study within modern Semitic philology. The book's introduction is dated now (many Afro-Semitic scholars now place Ge'ez in a different language group), but the rest of the work is not.

Lambdin's grammar is presented in transliteration, but this is far from a negative. The Classical Ethiopic script does not have a means of distinguishing between a consonant without a vowel and one with a shewa, and it also lacks the ability to demonstrate if a letter is doubled. Though this does create one of the most dizzing effects when a student makes the transition from transliteration to the script itself, any good class in which the language is taught will slowly introduce the script in during the second half of the course.

I concur with the other reviewers on the excellence of this text, but having had experience with studying Ge'ez for many years, I believe that practice with the Ethiopic syllabary is desirable from the beginning. In order to meet this need, the student should consider purchasing the Italian translation of Lambdin's book, "Introduzione alla lingua Ge'ez" (Rome: Orientalia Cristiana, 2002), in which all of the exercises and grammatical examples are presented in the Ethiopic script. At some point, the student of this language will want to obtain Dillmann's invaluable Ethiopic grammar, which has been reprinted and is available through Amazon, as well as Leslau's "Concise Dictionary" or - for those with a knowledge of Latin - Dillmann's "Lexicon."

This is really the only Ge'ez textbook suitable for absolute beginners.

Especially laudable is the author's decision to present the Ge'ez texts in transcription (you can't really call it transliteration in a strict sense, because it adds 2 important elements - consonantal doubling and clear indication of 'e' vowel).

You will have to learn the Ethiopic script, of course, but this in my opinion should be delayed until the basics of Ge'ez grammar are mastered.