By: Henok Elias

Presidents get away with saying, “God bless America”, in supposedly secular spaces, because the U.S. is rooted in the freedom of religion and not the French freedom from religion. Note the might of the tiny words in between freedom and religion. The idea is that putting guns to heads and swords to throats is not good religion. God bless Dr. Richard Benton’s love of languages. He is a Hebrew scholar, native English speaker, and strives to know many of the languages the planet Earth and its inhabitants proffer. Through his blog, Loving Language: Learning languages and connecting with others, Dr. Benton smart bombs envy, enmity, and dissension with joy, love and patience.

As a man who wants to see all of humanity (especially my Habesha family) liberated from indifference toward each other and succumbing to stereotypes against the afflicted, I would be remiss if I did not share with you all two terse blog posts written by Dr. Benton this month.

1. I Want My Children to Learn Somali
2. Pirates, Sexists, Terrorists: Is This All There is to Know About Somalis?

The first post, besides giving a shoutout to Eritreans in Seattle, lauds the intimate Somali way of referring to elders with terms Westerners would associate only with direct blood relatives. This point gives all Habeshas the feels. The second post instructs us how to see through demonization in the media. The secret is humanization through listening to the Other in her native tongue.

Enjoy..

By: Henok Elias

Harari is one of Ethiopia’s 87 languages. Here you get to hear Ms. Enas Adose. She alertly preserves this Afro-Asiatic tongue by sticky glueing 5 minutes of it to the digital realm – in which all things are aere perennius. Note what she has to say regarding languages in segregated linguistic communities versus languages living with their sisters and brothers. It is a classic… nay an ancient tale, yet one you can easily relate to, of differences betwixt the motherland and the diaspora. As your ever-rejoicing and ever-grinning griot, I have the self-imposed mandate to digitally yell “woe to you all”, if you do not heed my word by imaging Ms. Enas Adose. Learn your language. Share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HffcruyfvdI.

By: Henok Elias

Ferenj: What was that language you were speaking with your mom? It wasn’t English.

Me: Amharic.

Ferenj: Oh! You speak what Jesus spoke. That’s so interesting!

Me: *smh* No. I speak Amharic, not Aramaic.

I doubt I’m alone in having this archetypal and terse conversation. Especially, for a year or so after Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ boldly premiered in Aramaic on the monoglot shores of the United States. Tomes can be written, and I am sure at least one has been, about the many relationships betwixt the Aramaic tongue and Habesha culture. This is not the space for that. Instead, this is a warning to any Habesha who loves the 80 plus languages of their region and has harbored thoughts of preserving them. But, I will treat you with a few connections between Habesha culture and Aramaic before you press the button that sends you to The Atlantic article about the preservation or lack thereof Aramaic.

1. 9 Aramaic speaking saints fleeing persecution from Byzantium are credited with the translation of oodles of literature into Ge’ez
2. Aramaic is the liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church, which is in full communion with the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox communities
3. Words you might have thought were native to Amharic, like arb (Friday) and qurban (sacrifice/communion), come from Aramaic
4. Aramaic, like Ge’ez, Tigre, Tigrinya, Guragigna, Arabic, and Hebrew, is part of the Semitic family

Decline of a Lingua Franca: The Story of Aramaic.