This paper presents a descriptive analysis of the modifiers of Gwama, one of the Koman languages spoken mainly in Western Ethiopia. In addition to nouns and verbs, the language has the following word classes: adjectives, adverbs, and numerals. Adjectives express six semantic categories: dimension, colour, age, value, physical property, and human propensity. These adjectives have noun-like features, since they are inflected for number and definiteness. Though derivation is not a productive process, manner adverbs are derived from adjectives. To express how frequently something is done or has happened, partial reduplication of time adverbs occurs. Numerals follow the base-five number system, quinary. This base-five numeral system is an areal pattern that is also found in Komo and Opo. The general overview of numerals as modifiers presented here covers the functions of cardinal and ordinal numerals, where ordinals are formed from cardinals with the suffix -t’o.
Two new textbooks on Ethiopic (Gəʿəz) have recently been published by Archie T. Wright (2022) and Robert D. Holmstedt (2024). This review article explores how suitable they are for self study. Some doubts are raised.
Although the Ḥayq Ǝsṭifānos exemplar of the ‘Homiliary for the Year’ (EMML 1763) has become quite well-known, its connectedness to a much broader substratum of the medieval Ethiopic manuscript tradition has been mostly overlooked. It, in fact, constitutes only one of more than a dozen representatives of this homiliary to have emerged, which together go back to an archetype assembled sometime around the twelfth century. Several fragmentary witnesses to this particular collection, which contains texts translated from Greek and Arabic alongside original Ethiopic compositions, are scientifically described for the first time.
