ኢትዮጵያዊ ፊደል ለሀገር በቀል ቋንቋዎቻችን ያለው ፋይዳ

ሙሉጌታ ሥዩም*

Abstract

Ethiopia is a home land of communities speaking diversified languages and an ancient
country which has been using its own script and writing system. Ge'ez is the first written
language with its own script in the country. Later Amharic developed its own writing
system adopting it from Ge'ez language. Currently, The Ge'ez script, known as the
Ethiopic script or fidel, is used for several Ethiopian languages that have developed
their writing system based on it such as Tigrigna, Harari, Argoba, Gurage, etc. The main
objective of this study is to investigate and analyze the potential of using fidel for any
of the indigenous languages spoken in the country. The study presents linguistic criteria
used in the selection of a script for any language and presents that the Ethiopic script or
fidäl is a viable candidate for use for Ethiopian languages. The data for the study were
gathered from both primary and secondary sources and employed the computational theory of writing systems as a theoretical framework. The study presents a brief overview of African writing systems and the patterns and rationale behind script choice in writing Ethiopian languages in the past two decades and half. The study outlines the linguistic as well as nonlinguistic criteria that are considered in the development of orthographies. Based on these criteria, the study presents how the Ethiopic script is a viable option for writing Ethiopian languages. The study argues against the narratives that led to the choice of Latin script as a basis of orthography development in Ethiopia.