Classical Ethiopic Virtual Summer Course 2021, Princeton University, May 31–June 23, 2021
Classical Ethiopic or GeĘżez is an ancient African language from the Horn of Africa (modern-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti). It is written in a unique African script called Fidel, which is still used to write several modern East African languages including Amharic and Tigrinya. The literary history of Classical Ethiopic has deep connections with Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, and Syriac literatures. Classical Ethiopic writings span two millennia and its position in the Horn of Africa can be compared to Latin in Western Europe or Sanskrit in the Indian Subcontinent. Classical Ethiopic lives on as the liturgical language of Christian and Jewish communities in the Horn of Africa and in the global diaspora. Its literature is tied to the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in East Africa and Arabia and it represents one of the oldest African writings. One of the world’s largest collections of these writings are housed at the Princeton University Library.
In this introductory summer course through the Classics Department, students will learn to read and understand a variety of basic texts in Classical Ethiopic. They will learn about its diverse body of writing including ancient rock and coin inscriptions, medieval biographies and chronicles, and contemporary liturgy.
The course runs eight weeks and includes weekly live lessons with the instructor via Zoom. The program schedule is Monday 10-11:20am (EST) and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10-10:50am (EST), and the cost of the program is $2,000.