Amharic manuscript tradition
24 September 2020
The Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies at Universität Hamburg cordially invites you to a Zoom talk on
Amharic manuscript tradition
by Dr Denis Nosnitsin (Universität Hamburg)
on 24 September 2020 at 5 pm CET.
Should you wish to receive a Zoom invitation please register by writing to aethiopistik"AT"uni-hamburg.de with your name and affiliation by 21 September at 12:00 CET.
Abstract
Amharic pre-modern writing is one of the oldest among the African vernacular written traditions. Being a complex phenomenon, it rooted in the learned Gәʿәz literature on hand and in the vernacular oral culture of the Kingdom’s population on the other hand. The residue of the oral culture is strongly felt in many pre-modern Amharic texts. Besides, over centuries, Amharic was a medium indispensable for anyone, of whatever linguistic background, who wanted to progress on the path of the traditional church education and enter the traditional scholarship based on Gәʿәz.
The talk offers a general overview of the pre-modern Amharic literature and seeks to explore correlations, in historical perspective, between its existence and its properties as visible in the Ethiopian manuscript culture. The process of the accretion and spread of the Amharic writing left tangible traces in manuscripts.
At the beginning, Amharic passages were small and dispersed; at the end of the process there were codices with predominantly or fully Amharic main content. The circulation and use of Amharic manuscripts were marked by some peculiarities as compared to the majority of the Gәʿәz manuscripts meant for the liturgical life.