Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia. It is written in an artistic looking script. It is officially a version of the Ge'ez script called fidel. Because each character in the fidel script is actually a combination of several English sounds, it is very hard to transliterate. (Transliterate means to translate the meaning to English and also the script to our alphabet.) There is no standard way to transliterate Amharic to English, so you will often see the same word spelled several different ways.
I have purchased an Amharic CD and listening to it in my vehicle. (It is not a popular move with my passengers!) I am trying to learn a few things to make communication easier when we first meet Joshua.
Here are the words I am working on this week:
Mother - enat
Father - abat
I love you - ewadeshalo
Brother - wundim
Sister - ehit
Dog - woosha
Monkey - zinjuro
Grandfather - wund ayat
Grandmother - sayt ayat
Ball - kwas
Car - mukeeina
Airplane - awroplan
Cup - seenee
I am sure that Joshua will pick up English much faster than I am picking up Amharic, but hopefully the more I know the less frustrating his first days with us will be. In the long-term my biggest concern is bonding, but I feel like the sooner we can communicate the easier bonding will be.
