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GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ETHIOPIC SCRIPT [Abstract ID: 0513-05]
The genesis of the Ethiopic script - if we are to rely on the pertinent works on writing and the history of writing – is usually seen as resolved in the sense that the Ethiopic script is only a slight but very important modification of the South Arabian script which arrived at the highlands in the Horn of Africa through the expansion of the Sabaean Empire. This view has however recently been more and more questioned by a number of Ethiopian (Eritrean) scholars. In this connection the work by Ayele Bekerie: Ethiopic – an African writing system, its history and principles (1997) plays an important role, a publication that has found some recognition in the Ethiopian sphere. Although two volumi-nous reviews have already been published concerning this book (Peter T. Daniels and Dereje Tadesse B) I myself would nevertheless also like to debate some points found in there. Hereby it seems to me to be imperative not to proceed in a polemic manner but to argue from a factual cum critical perspec-tive. I shall not enter here any questions concerning Africocentrism, nor will I deal with the migrations the Semites might have undertaken in the course of history, but I shall concentrate on the script alone and there again solely from the aspect of its possible derivation from Egyptian. The starting point will be a comparison between the Egyptian and the Ethiopic writing systems. This author finds some agreements and similarities that are then placed into a historical sequence. Howe-ver before a real historical linkage can be investigated it is tantamount to examine the assumed agreements between both writing systems.