‘g’ = ‘G’ is No
Learning Amharic
Anyone who knows me knows that I love language, and I love learning languages.
In this pursuit, I’ve started one of my most complex projects. I’m teaching myself Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. I’m inspired by the Ethiopian community in DC, and I want to open myself to the influence of the place where I have chosen to live. To meet the people where they are, I am trying to learn some of their language. I want to celebrate them and say, “what’s up?”
For my Ethiopians out there, forgive me if I error:
Amharic and its writing system, the fidal, is quite a large difference from the English language alphabet. It is commonly understood that there are 26 letters in the English language. Meanwhile, Amharic has 33 basic characters each with seven variations meaning there are 231 different characters to learn.
This is less intense that it would seem. The vowels are in a family system, so there are strong connections across their presentation that help keep it simple.
Which has become my issue with English. There are 26 letters, but there are two cases. So really there are 52 letters. For the native English speakers in the house, imagine starting from the beginning in this. Some connections are obvious: ‘x’ looks like ‘X’, ‘p’ looks like ‘P’.
But ‘a’ is the same as ‘A’? Get out. ‘g’ is ‘G’? No, this is a joke.
A major hesitation in learning languages that don’t use even a modified roman script is the basic fact that the new writing system is “difficult” or “hard” to learn. This reasoning is now stumped in the face of ‘g’ = ‘G’.
My journey continues.
More soon,
Trevor