A New Site for Ge'ez

To make it even easier to find all our Ge'ez (Ethiopic) script keyboards, we’ve built a new Ge'ez minisite. In addition to 9 Ge'ez language keyboards, the site includes a FAQ with font help and links to our partner application, GeezWord.

Writing Ge'ez

Ge'ez is an ancient writing system from the horn of Africa. It was born hundreds of years B.C. as an abjad (like Hebrew) and gradually became an abugida (like Hindi).

Today, the Ge'ez script is used by nearly 25 million people in Ethiopia, Eritrea and around the world. The script is most commonly used for Ethiopian Semitic languages, including Amharic and Tigrigna, but is also used for Cushitic, Omotic and Nilo-Saharan languages like Blin, Bench and Me'en.

Typing Ge'ez

The Ge'ez Frontier Foundation has crafted nine separate keyboard packages for eleven different languages:

Language	Family	Origin	Speakers
Amharic	Semitic	Ethiopia	Over 17.5 million
Awngi	Cushitic	Ethiopia	Half a million
Bench	Omotic	Ethiopia	Over 100,000
Blin	Cushitic	Eritrea	Over 90,000
Dizi	Omotic	Ethiopia	Over 20,000
Ge'ez	Semitic	Ethiopia	Extinct
Me'en	Nilo-Saharan	Ethiopia	Over 80,000
Mursi	Nilo-Saharan	Ethiopia	Over 3,000
Sebatbeit	Semitic	Ethiopia	Over 2.3 million
Suri	Nilo-Saharan	Ethiopia	Over 19,000
Tigrigna	Semitic	Ethiopia	Over 3.2 million

Each keyboard follows the same straightforward phonetic approach. Type one or more Latin letters in consistent combinations to get phonetically similar characters in any Ge'ez-script language.

Letter	መ	ሙ	ሚ	ማ	ሜ	ም	ሞ	ሟ
Type	me	mu	mi	ma	mie	m	mo	mua
Letter	ቸ	ቹ	ቺ	ቻ	ቼ	ች	ቾ	ቿ
Type	ce	cu	ci	ca	cie	c	co	cua

The characters available in each keyboard differ to provide optimal access to the letters needed by each language. For example, here's a comparison of a few characters in the Amharic, Ge'ez, and Tigrigna keyboards:

Keyboard	Characters
	ሥ	ሽ	ቕ	ቭ	ች	ኅ	ኝ	ኽ	ዥ	ጅ	ጭ	ፅ
Amharic	✔	✔		✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Ge'ez	✔											✔
Tigrigna (Eritrea)		✔	✔	✔	✔		✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Tigrigna (Ethiopia)	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔

GeezWord

GeezWord by GeezSoft is a tailored typing application for Amharic and Tigrigna built on the Keyman engine. With a focus on desktop publishing, a solid collection of Ge'ez fonts, and native language techincal support in Amharic and Tigrigna, GeezWord is a great all-in-one solution for Ge'ez writers.

Check out GeezWord and all of the Ge'ez keyboards from our new minisite.

Comments

[Ben G. Adams]

I will include your suggestion into my research paper. In fact, i have been carrying this roundbraking study about the history and principles of Ge'ez, the language and writing system of present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, for two years already.