From: Peter T. Daniels
Message: 2794
Date: 2004-07-08
>Well, since you don't identify yourself, it's entirely possible that you
> > The ' b g d order is known in traditional Ethiopian circles,
> because it
> > appears in Psalm 119 (just as it does in the Septuagint).
>
> Evidence of the order appears to be from the alphabetic section names:
> "aleif", "beit", "gameil", and "daleit'", simple variants on the
> Hebraic letter names (a modern Amharic Bible even includes the Hebrew
> letters).* The first syllable of each word follows "a-bei-ga-da".
> The "ga" in "gameil" I've certainly seen change forms (gi,ge,g) but
> "beit" is a very stable semitic root. So I lean towards the rotated
> table as the origin of the word and hebraic scripts for the order.
> The "abegede" order is fairly well known, the Ethiopian Orthodox--
> Church applied it for a time but abandoned it. The order is at times
> loosely refered to as "abugida" (as per the table). The "bugida"
> (horizontal) aspect of the syllabary wouldn't be applied in "ordering"
> though, so I find it misleading.
>
> > It has liturgical uses.
>
> do tell!
>
> /Daniel
>
> *Psalm 119 in UTF-8:
> http://www.bible.org/foreign/amharic/psa-119.htm#P2194_104986
>
> Psalm 119 in PDF (with Hebrew) page 66:
> http://www.gospelcom.net/ibs/bibles/amharic/pdf/ot/psalms.pdf