Journal articles on the topic 'Translations into Amharic'

This essay offers the first English-language translations of Amharic poetry written by Ethiopian immigrants to the United States. Following an introduction to the Amharic language and the central place of poetry in Ethiopian literature and cultural life, the author discusses the work of four poets. The poems of Tewodros Abebe, Amha Asfaw, Alemayehu Gebrehiwot, and Alemtsehay Wedajo make creative use of Ethiopian verbal constructions reminiscent of traditional war songs and verbal interrogations used in legal contexts. Many of the poems speak eloquently of the personal losses Ethiopians have suffered as a result of their departure from their homeland. The essay includes biographical and ethnographic details about the individual poets and various influences on their compositions. (April 2009)

Eritrea is a newly independent country whose performing arts history, based on the music and dance of her nine ethnic groups, is only just beginning to be systematically researched. Western-influenced drama was introduced to the country by the Italians in the early twentieth century, but Eritreans only began to use this form of theatre in the 1940s. The three-part series here inaugurated is the first attempt to piece together the history of Eritrean drama, beginning below with an outline of its history from the 1940s to national independence in 1991. The author explores the highly political role drama played from the outset in Eritrea's struggle towards independence and the effort to mould this alien performance form into a public voice at least for urban Eritreans. Later articles will look at the cultural troupes of the Eritrean liberation forces and at post-independence work on developing community-based theatre. The research took place as part of the continuing Eritrea Community Based Theatre Project, which is involved with practical theatre development as well as theatre research. Although this opening article is written by Jane Plastow, she wishes to stress that it is the upshot of a collaborative research exercise, for which Elias Lucas and Jonathan Stephanus were research trainees. Most of the information used here is the result of interviews they conducted and of translations of articles in Tigrinya or Amharic which they located. Training in interview techniques and collaboration over translation of material into English was conducted by the project research assistant, Paul Warwick. Jane Plastow is the director of the Eritrea Community Based Theatre Project and a lecturer at Leeds University. She initiated the project at the invitation of the Eritrean government, after working in theatre for some years in a number of African countries, notably Ethiopia. She supervised the research for this project, and used her experience of African theatre and of the politics and history of the region to draw the available material into its present state as a preliminary history of Eritrean drama.

Background Stigma is common among patients with chronic illnesses. It affects the delivery of healthcare for not addressing the psychological components and may interfere with the patient’s attendance to necessary health care services. Therefore, a valid and reliable instrument to measure anticipated stigma related to chronic illness is vital to inform possible interventions. This study aimed to translate the Chronic Illness Anticipated Stigma Scale (CIASS) into the Amharic language and evaluate its psychometric properties in Ethiopia. Methods The CIASS was translated into Amharic language using standard procedures. The Amharic version was completed by 173 patients (response rate 96%) with chronic illness from three referral hospitals in the Amhara region. Internal consistency was examined through Cronbach’s alpha. Construct validity was evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis and convergent validity by using a Pearson correlation of P-value less than or equal to 0.05. Results The internal consistency was estimated at Cronbach alpha of 0.92. By using a structural equation model, and modification indices a model fitness testing was run and shows a root mean squared error of approximation 0.049 (90% CI, 0.012–0.075). The structural validity results in 78.8% of confirmatory factor analysis showed from the extraction of the three-dimension (components). Validity tests for convergent by using Pearson correlation positively correlated with common mental distress and negatively correlated with quality of life–BREF, and the construct validity shows a good valid tool to CIASS. Conclusion The Amharic language version of the chronic illness anticipated stigma scale shows a satisfactory level of reliability and validity on different psychometric measures of assessment. The tool may be useful for future researchers and patients with chronic illness in the Amharic-speaking population. Moreover, it will be used to see the psychological burden related to chronic illness and for comparison among international population groups.

Purpose Pelvic Floor Disorders (PFDs) affects many women and have a significant impact on their quality of life. Pelvic Floor Impact Questionnaire (PFIQ-7) and Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory (PFDI-20) help to assess PFDs; however, both are not culturally translated into the Amharic-language. Hence, we aimed to translate the English versions of short forms of the PFDI-20 and PFIQ-7 into Amharic-language and evaluate their psychometric properties in Amharic-speaking Ethiopian women with symptomatic PFDs. Methods The PFDI-20 and PFIQ-7 were translated into Amharic language using standard procedures. The Amharic versions were completed by 197 patients (response rate 92%) with PFDs from University of Gondar specialized and comprehensive Hospital. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were examined through Cronbach’s alpha and Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). A relative criterion standard, POP-SS-7 score, was correlated with total PFDI-20 and subscale POPDI-6 scores using spearman’s rank order correlation (SCC). Construct validity was evaluated by known group validity using the Mann–Whitney U test. Results Both instruments were successfully translated and adapted with an excellent content validity (> 0.90). The Amharic versions of the PFDI-20 and PFIQ-7 showed excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability in both summary and subscales (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.92 for PFDI-20 and 0.91 for PFIQ-7; and ICC: 0.97 for PFDI-20 and 0.86 for PFIQ-7). Criterion validity was good for POPDI-6 (SCC = 0.71; p < 0.001). Moreover, construct validity was acceptable, showing significant differences among groups of PFDs in the PFDI-20 and PFIQ-7 scores (Mann–Whitney U Test; p < 0.001). Conclusions The Amharic versions of the PFDI-20 and PFIQ-7 are comprehensible, reliable, valid, and feasible in Ethiopian Amharic-speaking women with PFDs to evaluate symptoms and its impact during research and clinical practice. However, further studies are needed to evaluate the responsiveness.

Abstract Aiming at explicating structural prolepsis, and how temporality of reading and living are related, the study was conducted on Tell Me Your Dreams (1998) and its respective Amharic translation (Hilimishn Achawichgn-ህልምሽን አጫውችኝ, 2009).The English novel is anticipation of retrospection. The structural prolepsis propels the story without excursion. But the Amharic translation is not; there is no structural prolepsis. The present is constructed retrospectively and reveals that the best of times is yet to come in the English novel; the future has a retrospective significance of meaning to the present. There is a hermeneutic circle between the presentification of reading the English novel and the depresentification of real life present. The present of the English novel and the lived present of real life are experienced in preterite form in relation to a future to come. The future of real life and the English narrative are the same for both are unknown and imagined. The A and B philosophy of time solidified the literariness of the English narrative, but temporal becoming is emphasized in the Amharic translation. The past has just been, and so is not; the future is to be, and so is not yet. Thus, its literariness can’t be sensed.

The article deals with two short poems in Amharic from Ms. Ef. 10 kept in the Library of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. Amharic, a Semitic language of Ethiopia, came to function as the second written language of Ethiopian Empire in the course of the 19th century. Samples of Amharic texts prior to this period are scanty and worthy of special study. The poems in question can be dated to the period end of the 17th – beginning of the 18th century. The article provides the texts of the poems with translation and linguistic and philological commentary, accompanied by a short description of Ms. Ef. 10.

The discovery of an Amharic document written by a church scholar from the monastery of Dimā Giyorgis in Eastern Goǧǧām (Ethiopia) throws fresh light on the circumstances and disputes behind the composition of the Life of the Ethiopian twin brother kings ʾAbrǝhā and ʾAṣbǝḥa, as well as on the Dǝrsāna ʿUrāʾel (‘Homily of Uriel’). The legendary characters of the Life and the events it narrates, along with its manuscript tradition, are analysed in detail. The Amharic ‘Dimā Document’ together with a royal letter concerning the Dǝrsāna ʿUrāʾel is edited with an annotated English translation.

AbstractThis article presents a publication and translation (with linguistic and philological commentaries) of a recently discovered piece of Old Amharic poetry, possibly dating to the first half/middle of the seventeenth century. The published text bears the title Märgämä kəbr (“Condemnation of glory”), but its content differs from that of several other Old Amharic poems (not entirely independent from each other) known under the same title. It is only the general idea and the main topics that are shared by all Märgämä kəbr poems: transience of the earthly world, the inevitability of death and of God's judgement, and the necessity of leading a virtuous life. One can thus speak of Märgämä kəbr as a special genre of early Amharic literature, probably originally belonging to the domain of oral literature and used to address the Christian community with the aim of religious education and admonition of laymen.

Objective: To assess the oral health–related quality of life (OH-RQoL) using a translated standardized measure in an understudied population of Ethiopian children born with orofacial clefts (OFCs) and their parents. Methods: Using a descriptive study design, we assessed the OH-RQoL of 41 patients with OFCs between the ages of 8 and 17 years and their parents. Participants received multidisciplinary cleft care from 2008 to 2016. They completed an Amharic translation of the Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP). Results: There was strong internal reliability with the translated COHIP for parents and patients. Parents’ COHIP scores ranged from 67 to 186, and patients’ scores were 78 to 190. The mean for patients and parents was 155, indicating good OH-RQoL. Conclusion: The Amharic translation of the COHIP appears appropriate for use with families in Ethiopia. Both parents and patients reported OH-RQoL at similar levels as other international populations.

Background Unplanned pregnancy is an important public health problem in both the developing and developed world, as it may cause adverse social and health outcomes for mothers, children, and families as a whole. London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy (LMUP) has been formally and informally validated in multiple and diverse settings. However, there is a dearth of literature on the validation of LMUP in Ethiopia either in the Amharic version or other languages. Objective The general objective of this study was to translate the LMUP into Amharic and evaluate its psychometric properties in a sample of Amharic-speaking women receiving antenatal care (ANC) service at public health facilities in Arbaminch and Birbir towns. Methods A cross-sectional study design was used for the study. Forward and backward translation of original English LMUP to Amharic was done. A cognitive interview using a pretested structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from respondents. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 25. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, inter-item correlations, and corrected item-total correlations while construct validity was assessed using principal components analysis and hypothesis testing. Results Data was collected from 320 women attending antennal care services at selected public health care facilities. LMUP range of 1to 11 was captured. The prevalence of unplanned pregnancies was 19(5.9%), while 136(42.5 were ambivalent and 165(51.6%) were planned pregnancies. The reliability testing demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.799) and the validity testing confirmed the unidimensional structure of the scale. In addition, all hypotheses were confirmed. Conclusions Amharic version of LMUP is a valid and reliable tool to measure pregnancy intention so that it can be used by Amharic speaking population in Ethiopia. It can also be used in research studies among Amharic-speaking women to measure unplanned pregnancy.

(1) Background: Self-reported measures play a crucial role in research, clinical practice, and health assessment. Instruments used to assess life satisfaction need validation to ensure that they measure what they are intended to detect true variations over time. An adapted instrument measuring life satisfaction for use among Ethiopian elders was lacking; therefore, this study aimed to culturally adapt and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Life Satisfaction Index for the Third Age—Short Form (LSITA-SF12) in Ethiopia. (2) Methods: Elderly people (n = 130) in Metropolitan cities of northwestern Ethiopia answered the LSITA-SF12 in the Amharic language. Selected reliability and validity tests were examined. (3) Result: The scale had an acceptable limit of content validity index, internal consistency, test-retest, inter-rater reliabilities, and concurrent and discriminant validities. (4) Conclusion: The Amharic language version of LSITA-SF12 appeared to be valid and reliable measures and can be recommended for use in research and clinical purposes among Amharic-speaking Ethiopian elders.

Abstract In this article, morphological shifts, number and gender shits observed in the translation of the Holy Qur’aan from Arabic into Amharic have been discussed and analyzed. Shifts in agreement in number and gender between parts of a sentence have been discussed. From the discussion given in the article one can conclude that agreement in number and gender is sensitive to word order in Arabic. For example, when the subject follows the verb the suffixes that show agreement are absent, but they are obligatorily present if the subject precedes the verb. Therefore, sometimes agreement in number and gender may not be strict in Arabic. However, in Amharic there should always be strict agreement in gender and number. Therefore shifts in number and gender have been obligatorily made by the translators of the Holy Qur’aan from Arabic into Amharic to produce grammatical sentences in the target language structure. However, in some instances, as discussed in the article, the translators closely adhered to the source language structure which produced ungrammatical or unknown structures in the target language structure. This may make some structures in the target text incomprehensible. Key Words: Source text, target text, target language structure, morphological shifts, gender and number Shift

Out-of-vocabulary (OOV) words are the most challenging problem in automatic speech recognition (ASR), especially for morphologically rich languages. Most end-to-end speech recognition systems are performed at word and character levels of a language. Amharic is a poorly resourced but morphologically rich language. This paper proposes hybrid connectionist temporal classification with attention end-to-end architecture and a syllabification algorithm for Amharic automatic speech recognition system (AASR) using its phoneme-based subword units. This algorithm helps to insert the epithetic vowel እ[ɨ], which is not included in our Grapheme-to-Phoneme (G2P) conversion algorithm developed using consonant–vowel (CV) representations of Amharic graphemes. The proposed end-to-end model was trained in various Amharic subwords, namely characters, phonemes, character-based subwords, and phoneme-based subwords generated by the byte-pair-encoding (BPE) segmentation algorithm. Experimental results showed that context-dependent phoneme-based subwords tend to result in more accurate speech recognition systems than the character-based, phoneme-based, and character-based subword counterparts. Further improvement was also obtained in proposed phoneme-based subwords with the syllabification algorithm and SpecAugment data augmentation technique. The word error rate (WER) reduction was 18.38% compared to character-based acoustic modeling with the word-based recurrent neural network language modeling (RNNLM) baseline. These phoneme-based subword models are also useful to improve machine and speech translation tasks.

This article will look at Abu Rumi’s Amharic rendering of the Book of Ruth with close comparison to the ancient and modern versions of the Bible, especially the Gǝ’ǝz, the Masoretic and the Septuaginta texts. The article will also look at the extent of Abu Rumi’s close reading of the Hebrew text and the degree to which he successfully transmits to us the full impact of the Hebrew story with all its niceties.

Translation of a pre-modern Amharic commentary on the Nicene Creed in English. The text of a Commentary on the Nicene Creed (ṣälotä haymanot) which forms the subject of this paper appears at the end of a copy of the Psalter and Wǝddase Maryam belonging to the Ethiopian church at Däbrä Gännät in Jerusalem [MS JE 48 E = MS Dabra Gannat 186]. The text was copied and circulated privately by the late Roger Cowley, who also records that material similar in outline but different in detail is contained in the andǝmta-commentary on the Anaphora of the Nicene Fathers.

In the day-to-day life of communities, good communication channels are crucial for mutual understanding. The hearing-impaired community uses sign language, which is a visual and gestural language. In terms of orientation and expression, it is separate from written and spoken languages. Despite the fact that sign language is an excellent platform for communication among hearing-impaired persons, it has created a communication barrier between hearing-impaired and non-disabled people. To address this issue, researchers have proposed sign language to text translation systems for English and other European languages as a solution. The goal of this research is to design and develop an Amharic digital text converter system using Ethiopian sign language. The proposed system was created with the help of two key deep learning algorithms: a pretrained deep learning model and a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). The LSTM was used to extract sequence information from a sequence of image frames of a specific sign language, while the pretrained deep learning model was used to extract features from single frame images. The dataset used to train the algorithms was gathered in video format from Addis Ababa University. Prior to feeding the obtained dataset to the deep learning models, data preprocessing activities such as cleaning and video to image frame segmentation were conducted. The system was trained, validated, and tested using 80%, 10%, and 10% of the 2475 images created during the preprocessing step. Two pretrained deep learning models, EfficientNetB0 and ResNet50, were used in this investigation, and they attained an accuracy of 72.79%. In terms of precision and f1-score, ResNet50 outperformed EfficientNetB0. For the proposed system, a graphical user interface prototype was created, and the best performing model was chosen and implemented. The proposed system can be utilized as a starting point for other researchers to improve upon, based on the outcomes of the experiment. More high-quality training datasets and high-performance training machines, such as GPU-enabled computers, can be added to the system to improve it.

Despite his important political and literary activities, Blatta Gäbrä Egzi'-abehēr is almost unknown to scholars of Menilek's Ethiopia. This historical period is not particularly well researched, and the author stands out as one of the few Ethiopian intellectuals to have written such an important number of literary works focused on nationalistic and anti-Italian feelings. The Amharic/Ge'ez text under discussion, his letter to Menilek written in 1899, is a remarkable document from this point of view because it reveals a strong opposition to colonialism and the Italian occupation of Eritrea. This document is one of the first Ethiopian sources to testify to the growing nationalism and the growth of concepts of unity and independence. It allows us to consider more carefully the beginning of an Ethiopian secular ideology of the modern state. And such an ideology must be placed in the colonial context. The letter to Menilek raises some important questions regarding the new source material in the late nineteenth century available to historians of modern Ethiopia. A translation of the text is given as well as a comment on its historical significance.

ObjectiveTo explore healthcare providers’ views on barriers to and facilitators of use of the national family planning (FP) guideline for FP services in Amhara Region, Ethiopia.DesignQualitative study.SettingNine health facilities including two hospitals, five health centres and two health posts in Amhara Region, Northwest Ethiopia.ParticipantsTwenty-one healthcare providers working in the provision of FP services in Amhara Region.Primary and secondary outcome measuresSemistructured interviews were conducted to understand healthcare providers’ views on barriers to and facilitators of the FP guideline use in the selected FP services.ResultsWhile the healthcare providers’ views point to a few facilitators that promote use of the guideline, more barriers were identified. The barriers included: lack of knowledge about the guideline’s existence, purpose and quality, healthcare providers’ personal religious beliefs, reliance on prior knowledge and tradition rather than protocols and guidelines, lack of availability or insufficient access to the guideline and inadequate training on how to use the guideline. Facilitators for the guideline use were ready access to the guideline, convenience and ease of implementation and incentives.ConclusionsWhile development of the guideline is an important initiative by the Ethiopian government for improving quality of care in FP services, continued use of this resource by all healthcare providers requires planning to promote facilitating factors and address barriers to use of the FP guideline. Training that includes a discussion about healthcare providers’ beliefs and traditional practices as well as other factors that reduce guideline use and increasing the sufficient number of guideline copies available at the local level, as well as translation of the guideline into local language are important to support provision of quality care in FP services.

This article analyzes the extent of child trafficking from a quantitative standpoint. The quantitative research approach was adopted in this study, supported by the application of cross-sectional exploratory and descriptive research design, which was used to address the extent of child trafficking in Ethiopia. A total of 636 household respondents were selected by systematic random sampling technique to fulfil the adopted quantitative survey. Data analysis was carried out using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24.0 statistical software packages. Adapt Quantitative-Logistic Regression, Bivariate analysis, Multivariate analysis, and Cross-tabulation of extent and factors of child trafficking were thoroughly quantified.
 The extent of child trafficking from the total result in the study area is about 128 children had been trafficked from the total of 636 households and that means the extent of child trafficking is about 20.1 percent in East Este Woreda and Debre Tabor woreda in or 1 child from 5 children had been trafficked. It recommended, the research is needed to identify the extent of child victims and vulnerable of trafficking in the study area to combat the problem. On the other hand, for a clear understanding of the International Conventions and Treaties (such as fully translating Rights of the Child and all ratified conventions), the publication should be translated to Amharic and Oromifa version (local language) in the official Negarit Gazeta of Ethiopia, so that everyone could understand and seek to implement their right easily. Information gup is a disadvantage for the nation, the government should use different programs on television and radio to address the issue.

Abstract A majority of the sources on medieval Ethiopia are written in the Gǝ‘ǝz language in the “genre” of history. However, some texts written in Arabic remain equally important. Among such texts the missive addressed by a ruler of Ethiopia to the Mamluk Sultan Baybars (known as al-Malik al-Ẓāhir) in AH 673 / AD 1274-75 is of considerable interest. The Ethiopian ruler can be identified as the founder of the Ethiopian Solomonic dynasty Yǝkunno Amlak. The text of this missive survived in three Arabic versions: in the Islamic “encyclopaedias” by al-Nuwayrī and al-Qalqashadī (resp. AH 730 / AD 1330 and AH 814 / AD 1412) and in the dhayl (continuation) to the Universal history by al-Makīn, compiled by the Coptic author al-Mufaḍḍal b. Abī’l-Faḍā’il in AH 759 / AD 1358. All three versions are almost identical, however, the version by al-Nuwayrī is the longest one and the closest to the original. The detailed analysis of this version supplied by the full translation into English made for the first time by the present author clearly shows that the person who wrote it was the amīr (commander) of the Amhara and not yet the king of Ethiopia. However, he had an intention to become himself with his people a subject of Baybars to obtain help from him against the Zagwe dynasty. As a consequence, the Ethiopian Christians would have been under the Muslim power. However, the Mamluk Sultan was less interested in that affair.

Background Open defecation is the disposal of human faeces in the fields, forests, bushes, and open bodies of water. It is practiced more in sub-Saharan African countries and is considered a sign of underdevelopment. Open defecation facilitates the transmission of pathogens that cause diarrheal diseases which is the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease. In Ethiopia, it kills half a million under-five children annually. Even though open defecation practice is a major cause of childhood mortality and morbidity in Ethiopia, there is minimal evidence on the trend, spatiotemporal distribution, wealth-related inequalities, and other determinates of open defecation practice. Objectives Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the trend, spatiotemporal distribution, and determinants of open defecation among households in Ethiopia. Methods Cross-sectionally collected secondary data analysis was conducted based on 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS). A total weighted sample of 16,554 households was included. We assessed the 16 years (2000–2016) trend of open defecation with 95% confidence intervals. Data were weighted, recoded, cleaned, and analyzed using STATA version 14.2 software. A mixed-effect analysis was employed to identify factors contributing to open defecation practice in Ethiopia. In the final multivariable analysis, the associations between dependent and independent variables were presented using adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals with a p-value of <0.05. The concentration index was used to assess wealth-related inequalities, while spatial analysis was used to explore the spatial distribution and significant windows of open defecation practice. Results The trend of open defecation practice in Ethiopia was significantly decreased from 81.96% (95% CI: 81.08, 82.8) in 2000 EDHS, to 32.23% (95% CI: 31.16, 33.31) in 2016 EDHS. Individual-level factors such as; age, educational attainment, marital status, media exposure, wealth status, and source of drinking water, as well as community-level factors such as residence, region, community-level poverty, and community level media usage, had a significant association. Open defecation practice was significantly and disproportionately concentrated on the poor households [C = -0.669; 95% CI: -0.716, -0.622]. A non-random open defecation practice was observed in Ethiopia. Among the 11 regions, primary clusters were identified in only 3 regions (Afar, Somali, and Eastern Amhara) Conclusion Open defecation practice remains a public health problem irrespective of the significant decrease seen in Ethiopia for the past 16 years. Individual and community-level factors had a significant association with this problem. Since it is a leading cause of under-five children mortality and morbidity, the Ethiopian ministry of health should plan and work on basic sanitation programs that focus on the poorest communities, rural societies, and small peripheral regions. These programs should include regional planning for sanitation, and translation of materials into local languages to prevent under-five mortality and morbidity due to diarrheal diseases caused by open defecation.

In analysing and translating Amharic texts, most foreign students have experienced major problems while trying to ‘redirect’ the rigidly leftbranching syntax of Amharic into the predominantly right-branching syntax of most European languages. The way out of this difficulty proposed by some teachers of Amharic consists in the so-called ‘translating from the end’ principle: the student begins to decipher the structure of an Amharic sentence from the finite verb form at its very end and gradually proceeds towards the beginning of the sentence, untangling—one by one—the syntactic structures involved. In the course of teaching Amharic, I have found this method largely inadequate for the purpose it is supposed to achieve. As an alternative to the ‘translating from the end’ method the author proposes another strategy which could be termed ‘reliance on predicative units’. In using this strategy, the student should, first of all, single out verb forms which are likely to perform the function of (final or dependent) predicates. The second step consists in delimiting groups, or units, headed by every such verb form. The third step is to provide a rough, working translation of every such unit without taking into consideration its relations to the other units in the sentence. The fourth, and final, step consists in joining the translations of the predicative units together; at this stage, detailed knowledge of Amharic morphosyntactic rules is very much required.

Proverbs have been used in language teaching for centuries. Nowadays, language learners associate mastery of this traditionally oral genre to a certain level of fluency and regard it as an access key to a deeper understanding of the native speakers’ culture. The recently released Tǝgrǝñña coursebook Let’s Speak Tigrinya (2018) contains almost fifty proverbs, and provides students with an insight into this old and rich tradition. However, owing to the lack of commentary or translation, the paper here seeks to compensate for this deficiency. In comparison with several Tǝgrǝñña proverb collections, it becomes apparent that the expressions listed in the textbook are common in Eritrea as well as in the Tǝgray region, in several alternative variations, some of which have been attested to in earlier European research works. A few examples even have an Amharic equivalent. The proverbs focused on here cover a wide range of both grammatical and everyday life topics and should be implemented in a more effective manner than the textbook provides. However, due to the lack of translations and occasional misprints, their accessibility is radically reduced and of little use for the individual language learner unassisted by a classroom situation.

Abstract Background Adapting and translating already developed tools to different cultures is a complex process, but once done, it increases the validity of the construct to be measured. This study aimed to assess the 12 items WHODAS-2 and test its psychometric properties among road traffic injury victims in Ethiopia. This study aimed to translate the 12 items WHODAS- 2 interview-based tools into Amharic and examine the psychometric properties of the new version among road traffic injury victims. Methods The 12 items WHODAS 2 was first translated into Amharic by two experts. Back translation was done by two English experts. A group of experts reviewed the forward and backward translation. A total of 240 patients with road traffic injury completed the questionnaires at three selected Hospitals in Amhara Regional State. Internal consistency was; assessed using Chronbach’s alpha, convergent, and divergent validity, which were; tested via factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA); was computed, and the model fit; was examined. Results The translated Amharic version 12 –items WHODAS-2 showed that good cross-cultural adaptation and internal consistency (Chronbach’s α =0.88). The six factor structure best fits data (model fitness indices; CFI = 0.962, RMSEA = 0.042, RMR = 0.072, GFI = 0.961, chi-square value/degree of freedom = 1.42, TLI = 0.935 and PCLOSE = 0.68). Our analysis showed that from the six domains, mobility is the dominant factor explaining 95% of variability in disability. Conclusion The 12 items interview-based Amharic version WHODAS-2; showed good cultural adaptation at three different settings of Amhara Regional State and can be used to measure dis-ability following a road traffic injury.

Abstract Background The stroke-specific quality of life 2.0 (SSQOL 2.0) scale is a valid, reliable instrument which has been widely used as a patients reported outcome measure among stroke survivors. However, the SSQOL scale has not been validated and used in any Ethiopian language. This study aimed to translate, culturally adapt, and test the psychometric properties of the SSQOL scale 2.0 in Amharic, which is the official and working language with about 34 million (23%) speakers in Ethiopia. Methods The adapted English version of the SSQOL 2.0 scale was translated into Amharic and then back-translated to English. An expert committee translated and created a final Amharic version of SSQOL (SSQOL-AM) scale. Pre-field testing (pilot and cognitive debriefing) was conducted with 15 post-stroke subjects. The SSQOL-Am was administered to 245 stroke survivors from four referral hospitals to determine the psychometric properties. Cronbach’s alpha and Intra-class correlation coefficient were used to calculate the internal consistency and test–retest reliability, spearman’s correlation for the convergent validity of the SSQOL-Am scale. The Standard Error of Measurement (SEM), Minimum Detectable Change (MDC), Bland Altman Limit of Agreement (LOA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Exploratory Factor Analysis were also determined. Results The SSQOL-Am demonstrated excellent test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.93), internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96), SEM 0.857, MDC 1.94, and good LOA. As postulated, the mobility domain of the tool demonstrated a significantly strong correlation with the physical function domain of the SF-36 (rho = 0.70, p < 0.001). Conclusions The SSQOL-Am is a valid and reliable outcome measure. The tool can be used in both clinical practice and research purposes with Amharic speaking post-stroke survivors.

Abstract Background The Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) is a valid and reliable instrument that evaluates pain self-efficacy beliefs in people with pain conditions. However, it has not been validated and used in Ethiopia. We conducted this study to translate, adapt, and test the psychometric properties of the PSEQ in the Amharic language and Ethiopian context for its use with people experiencing low back pain (LBP). Methods The PSEQ was translated into Amharic and then back-translated into English. An expert review committee created a final Amharic version of the tool (PSEQ-Am), followed by pilot testing and cognitive debriefing with a sample of 20 people with LBP. The psychometric properties of the final version of PSEQ-Am were assessed in a sample of 240 people with LBP recruited from three rehabilitation centers in Ethiopia. Cronbach’s alpha and Intra-class correlation coefficient were calculated to describe the reliability and internal consistency of the tool. The SF-36-Am bodily pain subscale was used to assess convergent validity. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were performed to determine the dimensionality of the instrument. Results PSEQ-Am demonstrated excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.93) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.91). As hypothesized, the tool demonstrated a significant moderate correlation with the Bodily Pain subscale of the SF-36-Am (Rho = 0.51, p < 0.01). EFA analysis shows that the Amharic version of PSEQ is a dominant one factor and secondary two factor structure. Conclusion This study shows that PSEQ-Am is a reliable and valid tool that can be used in both clinical practice and research in the Ethiopian low back pain population.

BACKGROUND፡ Peri-operative anxiety is a vague, unpleasant feeling, the source of which is often nonspecific and unknown to the individual. It affects all aspects of anesthesia. Although the magnitude and consequences of preoperative anxiety are well documented in the developed world, there are limited studies conducted in Ethiopia. The primary aim of this study is to produce the Amharic version of APAIS and evaluate its validity in assessing the prevalence of preoperative anxiety in surgical patients.METHODS: A cross-cultural adaptation process using a forward/backward translation of the APAIS scale was performed. The Amharic version was then tested in 365 sampled elective adult surgical patients scheduled for surgery at Tikur Anbessa specialized Hospital. The validity of the translated version was also checked by evaluating its psychometric properties of internal validity and acceptability.Result: The results showed that the reliability of the APAISAmharic was high (Cronbach's alpha of 0.87) and the data collected was a good fit (RMSEA of 0.04). In addition, the questionnaire was well-accepted 100% with no missing values for each dimension of the APAIS. The mean APAIS scores for total anxiety and desire for information were 11.6 and 6.0 respectively and 58.9% of the study participants had anxiety and those patients, who had some form of formal education, came from urban areas, had previous anesthesia experience and complications and who had average or high information requirement was more likely to be anxious.CONCLUSION: APAIS-Amharic is a reliable and acceptable tool for measuring patients’ preoperative anxiety and their need for information. It can be used routinely as a screening instrument at pre-anesthesia clinics to assess patients’ level of anxiety.

Abstract Background Childhood cancer negatively impacts a child's physical, mental, and behavioural health and significantly affects their health-related quality of life. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 Generic Core Scale (PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS) is one of the most commonly used measures of the quality of life in children. However, the Amharic version of PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS has not been validated in a paediatric oncology population. This study aimed to translate and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Amharic PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (A)) for Ethiopian children with cancer. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among children aged 8–18 years with any type of cancer across the cancer trajectory. Cronbach’s alpha and intraclass correlation coefficient were computed to determine the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the scale. The convergent validity was established by examining the correlation of the PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (A) with the Amharic version of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS-25(A)). Factorial validity was evaluated by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis. Results The study included 142 participants with childhood cancer. PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (A) had good validity and reliability. It demonstrated high internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96 for the scale and 0.82–0.95 for the subscales. The intraclass correlation coefficient for the scale was 0.9 and that for the subscales was 0.76–0.90. The PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (A) was highly correlated with RCADS-25 (A) (r = − 0.97, p < 0.001), supporting its convergent validity. The four-factor structure of the model fitted the data satisfactorily (χ2/df = 1.28; CFI = 0.97; TLI = 0.97; RMSEA = 0.05; SRMR = 0.05), supporting the factorial validity of the PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (A). Conclusion The PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (A) demonstrates desirable psychometric properties for assessing quality of life among Ethiopian children with cancer. The scale can be used in clinical settings for assessing and evaluating quality of life in children with cancer. The use of parent-report versions and studies in those with different health conditions and healthy populations are necessary to further establish the psychometric properties of the PedsQL™ 4.0 GCS (A).

The aim of this paper is to describe the system behind personal names in Hadiyya. The bulk of the paper analyses the semantics of personal names. Hadiyya personal names express social, economic and political circumstances accompanying the birth of a child. Name givers express their wishes, desires and emotions through personal names. The close examination of names over generations indicates a gradual shift from typical Had-iyya names to modified Amharic-based names. Since the advent of Christianity in the region, Biblical names have also become common. The historical underpinnings for the shift to Amharic-based and Biblical names are language and cultural contact. All Hadiyya personal names display vowel endings that mark case and gender. Like other nouns in the language, per-sonal names can have simple, derived or compound form. Interestingly, most Hadiyya personal names can be translated freely with relative or agentive readings. Personal names can have a perfective reading describing past experience or an imperfective reading expressing wishes for the future. Though Hadiyya is a morphologically complex language and hence all the above grammatical notions are overtly marked, they are omitted in the morphology of personal names. The use of inflectional and derivational morphemes is minimal. Hadiyya personal names are therefore special word classes that tend to display a simplified morphosyntactic structure and free translation.

Abstract Background Anxiety is a behavioral expression of tension and unpleasant emotion that arises from multifactorial dimensions that might increase the mortality of patients during anesthesia and surgery. This study aimed to verify the prevalence and associated factors of preoperative anxiety among women undergoing elective cesarean delivery. Method A cross-sectional study design was conducted on a total of 392 patients who underwent elective cesarean delivery in Debre Tabor Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, in North Central Ethiopia from October 15, 2020, to September 15, 2021. Data was collected using a validated Amsterdam questionnaire, after translating to the local language (Amharic). Descriptive statistics were expressed in percentages and presented in tables. Bivariable and multivariable logistic analyses were done to identify factors associated with preoperative anxiety. The statistical significance level was set at P < 0.05 with 95% CI. Results The overall prevalence of preoperative anxiety in women undergoing elective cesarean delivery was 67.9 [95% CI = (63.0–72.7)]. Participants who came from rural areas [AOR = 2.65; 95%CI: 1.27–5.53], farmers [AOR = 2.35; 95%CI: 1.02–5.40], participants with no previous surgical and anesthesia history [AOR = 2.91; 95%CI: 1.69–5.01], and primiparous women [AOR = 1.69; 95%CI: 1.01–2.83] were more significantly associated with preoperative anxiety. Conclusion The prevalence of preoperative anxiety among elective cesarean deliveries was found to be high. So, preoperative maternal counseling and anxiety reduction services should therefore be given top priority, particularly for those women who came from rural areas, are farmers, have no prior surgical or anesthetic experience, and are primiparous.

Natural language processing plays a great role in providing an interface for human-computer communication. It enables people to talk with the computer in their formal language rather than machine language. This study aims at presenting a Part of speech tagger that can assign word class to words in a given paragraph sentence. Some of the researchers developed parts of speech taggers for different languages such as English Amharic, Afan Oromo, Tigrigna, etc. On the other hand, many other languages do not have POS taggers like Shekki’noono language. POS tagger is incorporated in most natural language processing tools like machine translation, information extraction as a basic component. So, it is compulsory to develop a part of speech tagger for languages then it is possible to work with an advanced natural language application. Because those applications enhance machine to machine, machine to human, and human to human communications. Although, one language POS tagger cannot be directly applied for other languages POS tagger. With the purpose for developing the Shekki’noono POS tagger, we have used the stochastic Hidden Markov Model. For the study, we have used 1500 sentences collected from different sources such as newspapers (which includes social, economic, and political aspects), modules, textbooks, Radio Programs, and bulletins. The collected sentences are labeled by language experts with their appropriate parts of speech for each word. With the experiments carried out, the part of speech tagger is trained on the training sets using Hidden Markov model. As experiments showed, HMM based POS tagging has achieved 92.77 % accuracy for Shekki’noono. And the POS tagger model is compared with the previous experiments in related works using HMM. As a future work, the proposed approaches can be utilized to perform an evaluation on a larger corpus.

Abstract Background Parental satisfaction is a well-established outcome indicator and tool for assessing a healthcare system’s quality, as well as input for developing strategies for providing acceptable patient care. This study aimed to assess parental satisfaction with neonatal intensive care unit service and its associated factors. Method A cross-sectional study design was conducted on parents whose neonates were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Debre Tabor Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, in North Central Ethiopia. Data were collected by adopting an EMPATHIC-N instrument during the day of neonatal discharge, after translating the English version of the instrument to the local language (Amharic). Both Bivariable and multivariable logistic analyses were done to identify factors associated with parental satisfaction with neonatal intensive care unit service. P < 0.05 with 95% CI was considered statistically significant. Results The data analysis was done on 385 parents with a response rate of 95.06%. The overall average satisfaction of parents with neonatal intensive care unit service was 47.8% [95% CI= (43.1–52.5)]. The average parental satisfaction of neonatal intensive care unit service in the information dimension was 50.40%; in the care and treatment dimension was 36.9%, in the parental participation dimension was 50.1%, in the organization dimension was 59.0% and the professional attitude dimension was 48.6%. Gender of parents, residency, parental hospital stay, birth weight, and gestational age were factors associated with parental satisfaction. Conclusion There was a low level of parental satisfaction with neonatal intensive care unit service. Among the dimensions of EMPATHIC-N, the lowest parental satisfaction score was in the care and treatment while the highest parental satisfaction score was in the organization dimension.

Abstract Background Evidence-based brief psychological interventions are safe and effective for the treatment of antenatal depressive symptoms. However, the adaptation of such interventions for low- and middle-income countries has not been prioritised. This study aimed to select and adapt a brief psychological intervention for women with antenatal depressive symptoms attending primary healthcare (PHC) in rural Ethiopia. Methods We employed the Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions. Alongside this, we used the ADAPT-ITT model of process adaptation and the ecological validity model (EVM) to guide content adaptation. We conducted formative work, comprising a qualitative study, a series of three participatory theories of change workshops and an expert adaptation workshop to assess the needs of the target population and to select an intervention for adaptation. The adaptation process followed a series of steps: (1) training Ethiopian mental health experts in the original South African problem-solving therapy (PST version 0.0) and an initial adaptation workshop leading to PST Version 1.0. (2) Version 1.0 was presented to perinatal women and healthcare professionals in the form of a ‘theatre test’, leading to further adaptations (version 2.0). (3) Local and international stakeholders reviewed version 2.0, leading to version 3.0, which was used to train 12 PHC staff using clinical cases. (4) Finally, feedback about PST version 3.0 and its delivery was obtained from PHC staff. Results In the first step, we modified case examples and terminology from the South African model, introduced an in-session pictorial flipchart for this low literacy setting, and added strategies to facilitate women’s engagement before translating into Amharic. In the second step, adaptations included renaming of the types of problems and inclusion of more exercises to demonstrate proposed coping strategies. In the third step, the components of motivational interviewing were dropped due to cultural incongruence. In the final step, refresher training was delivered as well as additional training on supporting control of women’s emotions to address PHC staff training needs, leading to the final version (version 4.0). Conclusion Using a series of steps, we have adapted the content and delivery of brief PST to fit the cultural context of this setting. The next step will be to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention and its delivery in antenatal care settings.

Although most children with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders live in low- and middle-income countries, assessment tools are lacking in these settings. This study aims to culturally adapt and validate two questionnaires for use in Ethiopia: the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Family Impact Module. Both questionnaires were adapted to be suitable for administration in low-literate caregivers and translated using the backward translation procedure. The factor structure, reliability and validity were investigated using caregiver-reports on 300 children with neurodevelopmental disorders or physical health conditions. Confirmatory factor analysis of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Family Impact Module data indicated an acceptable fit of the hypothesised eight-factor structure. Internal consistency was high for both measures. Test–retest reliability was excellent for the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist and moderate to excellent for the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Family Impact Module. Both questionnaires demonstrated adequate known-group validity, with moderate to very large effect size group differences between case and control groups. The questionnaires correlated moderately with each other. In conclusion, the Ethiopian adaptations of the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Family Impact Module are valid and reliable tools for use in parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders including autism. These adapted measures may also be valuable for use in other low-income settings. Lay abstract Although most children with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders live in low- and middle-income countries, reliable tools to assess these conditions are often not available in these settings. In this study, we adapted two questionnaires developed in Western high-income contexts for use in Ethiopia – the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Family Impact Module. Both measures are completed by a child’s caregiver and both are relatively short and easy to complete. The Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist is used to monitor the developmental issues of the child, while the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Family Impact Module measures the impact of the child’s condition on the caregiver. We translated both tools into the Ethiopian language Amharic, and adapted them to the local cultural context. Three hundred caregivers, half of whom were parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and half were parents of children with physical health problems, completed the questionnaires through a face-to face interview, so that non-literate caregivers could also take part. Both tools performed adequately, measured what we aimed to measure and were reliable. Both the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ are suitable tools to assess children with developmental and other health problems in Ethiopia and their caregivers. We believe that more similar tools should be developed or adapted for use in low-income countries like Ethiopia, to gain a better understanding of developmental problems in those settings, and allowing clinicians and service providers to use these tools in their practice. Moreover, these tools can be used in future studies to evaluate interventions to improve support for families.

IntroductionThere are two types of Africa. The first is a place where people and cultures live. The second is the image of Africa that has been invented through colonial knowledge and power. The colonial image of Africa, as the Other of Europe, a land “enveloped in the dark mantle of night” was supported by western states as it justified their colonial practices (Hegel 91). Any evidence that challenged the myth of the Dark Continent was destroyed, removed or ignored. While the looting of African natural resources has been studied, the looting of African knowledges hasn’t received as much attention, partly based on the assumption that Africans did not produce knowledge that could be stolen. This article invalidates this myth by examining the legacy of Ethiopia’s indigenous Ge’ez literature, and its looting and abduction by powerful western agents. The article argues that this has resulted in epistemic violence, where students of the Ethiopian indigenous education system do not have access to their books, while European orientalists use them to interpret Ethiopian history and philosophy using a foreign lens. The analysis is based on interviews with teachers and students of ten Ge’ez schools in Ethiopia, and trips to the Ethiopian manuscript collections in The British Library, The Princeton Library, the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and The National Archives in Addis Ababa.The Context of Ethiopian Indigenous KnowledgesGe’ez is one of the ancient languages of Africa. According to Professor Ephraim Isaac, “about 10,000 years ago, one single nation or community of a single linguistic group existed in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Horn of Africa” (The Habesha). The language of this group is known as Proto-Afroasiatic or Afrasian languages. It is the ancestor of the Semitic, Cushitic, Nilotic, Omotic and other languages that are currently spoken in Ethiopia by its 80 ethnic groups, and the neighbouring countries (Diakonoff). Ethiopians developed the Ge’ez language as their lingua franca with its own writing system some 2000 years ago. Currently, Ge’ez is the language of academic scholarship, studied through the traditional education system (Isaac, The Ethiopian). Since the fourth century, an estimated 1 million Ge’ez manuscripts have been written, covering religious, historical, mathematical, medicinal, and philosophical texts.One of the most famous Ge’ez manuscripts is the Kebra Nagast, a foundational text that embodied the indigenous conception of nationhood in Ethiopia. The philosophical, political and religious themes in this book, which craft Ethiopia as God’s country and the home of the Ark of the Covenant, contributed to the country’s success in defending itself from European colonialism. The production of books like the Kebra Nagast went hand in hand with a robust indigenous education system that trained poets, scribes, judges, artists, administrators and priests. Achieving the highest stages of learning requires about 30 years after which the scholar would be given the rare title Arat-Ayina, which means “four eyed”, a person with the ability to see the past as well as the future. Today, there are around 50,000 Ge’ez schools across the country, most of which are in rural villages and churches.Ge’ez manuscripts are important textbooks and reference materials for students. They are carefully prepared from vellum “to make them last forever” (interview, 3 Oct. 2019). Some of the religious books are regarded as “holy persons who breathe wisdom that gives light and food to the human soul”. Other manuscripts, often prepared as scrolls are used for medicinal purposes. Each manuscript is uniquely prepared reflecting inherited wisdom on contemporary lives using the method called Tirguamme, the act of giving meaning to sacred texts. Preparation of books is costly. Smaller manuscript require the skins of 50-70 goats/sheep and large manuscript needed 100-120 goats/sheep (Tefera).The Loss of Ethiopian ManuscriptsSince the 18th century, a large quantity of these manuscripts have been stolen, looted, or smuggled out of the country by travellers who came to the country as explorers, diplomats and scientists. The total number of Ethiopian manuscripts taken is still unknown. Amsalu Tefera counted 6928 Ethiopian manuscripts currently held in foreign libraries and museums. This figure does not include privately held or unofficial collections (41).Looting and smuggling were sponsored by western governments, institutions, and notable individuals. For example, in 1868, The British Museum Acting Director Richard Holms joined the British army which was sent to ‘rescue’ British hostages at Maqdala, the capital of Emperor Tewodros. Holms’ mission was to bring treasures for the Museum. Before the battle, Tewodros had established the Medhanialem library with more than 1000 manuscripts as part of Ethiopia’s “industrial revolution”. When Tewodros lost the war and committed suicide, British soldiers looted the capital, including the treasury and the library. They needed 200 mules and 15 elephants to transport the loot and “set fire to all buildings so that no trace was left of the edifices which once housed the manuscripts” (Rita Pankhurst 224). Richard Holmes collected 356 manuscripts for the Museum. A wealthy British woman called Lady Meux acquired some of the most illuminated manuscripts. In her will, she bequeathed them to be returned to Ethiopia. However, her will was reversed by court due to a campaign from the British press (Richard Pankhurst). In 2018, the V&A Museum in London displayed some of the treasures by incorporating Maqdala into the imperial narrative of Britain (Woldeyes, Reflections).Britain is by no means the only country to seek Ethiopian manuscripts for their collections. Smuggling occurred in the name of science, an act of collecting manuscripts for study. Looting involved local collaborators and powerful foreign sponsors from places like France, Germany and the Vatican. Like Maqdala, this was often sponsored by governments or powerful financers. For example, the French government sponsored the Dakar-Djibouti Mission led by Marcel Griaule, which “brought back about 350 manuscripts and scrolls from Gondar” (Wion 2). It was often claimed that these manuscripts were purchased, rather than looted. Johannes Flemming of Germany was said to have purchased 70 manuscripts and ten scrolls for the Royal Library of Berlin in 1905. However, there was no local market for buying manuscripts. Ge’ez manuscripts were, and still are, written to serve spiritual and secular life in Ethiopia, not for buying and selling. There are countless other examples, but space limits how many can be provided in this article. What is important to note is that museums and libraries have accrued impressive collections without emphasising how those collections were first obtained. The loss of the intellectual heritage of Ethiopians to western collectors has had an enormous impact on the country.Knowledge Grabbing: The Denial of Access to KnowledgeWith so many manuscripts lost, European collectors became the narrators of Ethiopian knowledge and history. Edward Ullendorff, a known orientalist in Ethiopian studies, refers to James Bruce as “the explorer of Abyssinia” (114). Ullendorff commented on the significance of Bruce’s travel to Ethiopia asperhaps the most important aspect of Bruce’s travels was the collection of Ethiopic manuscripts… . They opened up entirely new vistas for the study of Ethiopian languages and placed this branch of Oriental scholarship on a much more secure basis. It is not known how many MSS. reached Europe through his endeavours, but the present writer is aware of at least twenty-seven, all of which are exquisite examples of Ethiopian manuscript art. (133)This quote encompasses three major ways in which epistemic violence occurs: denial of access to knowledge, Eurocentric interpretation of Ethiopian manuscripts, and the handling of Ge’ez manuscripts as artefacts from the past. These will be discussed below.Western ‘travellers’, such as Bruce, did not fully disclose how many manuscripts they took or how they acquired them. The abundance of Ethiopian manuscripts in western institutions can be compared to the scarcity of such materials among traditional schools in Ethiopia. In this research, I have visited ten indigenous schools in Wollo (Lalibela, Neakutoleab, Asheten, Wadla), in Gondar (Bahita, Kuskwam, Menbere Mengist), and Gojam (Bahirdar, Selam Argiew Maryam, Giorgis). In all of the schools, there is lack of Ge’ez manuscripts. Students often come from rural villages and do not receive any government support. The scarcity of Ge’ez manuscripts, and the lack of funding which might allow for the purchasing of books, means the students depend mainly on memorising Ge’ez texts told to them from the mouth of their teacher. Although this method of learning is not new, it currently is the only way for passing indigenous knowledges across generations.The absence of manuscripts is most strongly felt in the advanced schools. For instance, in the school of Qene, poetic literature is created through an in-depth study of the vocabulary and grammar of Ge’ez. A Qene student is required to develop a deep knowledge of Ge’ez in order to understand ancient and medieval Ge’ez texts which are used to produce poetry with multiple meanings. Without Ge’ez manuscripts, students cannot draw their creative works from the broad intellectual tradition of their ancestors. When asked how students gain access to textbooks, one student commented:we don’t have access to Birana books (Ge’ez manuscripts written on vellum). We cannot learn the ancient wisdom of painting, writing, and computing developed by our ancestors. We simply buy paper books such as Dawit (Psalms), Sewasew (grammar) or Degwa (book of songs with notations) and depend on our teachers to teach us the rest. We also lend these books to each other as many students cannot afford to buy them. Without textbooks, we expect to spend double the amount of time it would take if we had textbooks. (Interview, 3 Sep. 2019)Many students interrupt their studies and work as labourers to save up and buy paper textbooks, but they still don’t have access to the finest works taken to Europe. Most Ge’ez manuscripts remaining in Ethiopia are locked away in monasteries, church stores or other places to prevent further looting. The manuscripts in Addis Ababa University and the National Archives are available for researchers but not to the students of the indigenous system, creating a condition of internal knowledge grabbing.While the absence of Ge’ez manuscripts denied, and continues to deny, Ethiopians the chance to enrich their indigenous education, it benefited western orientalists to garner intellectual authority on the field of Ethiopian studies. In 1981, British Museum Director John Wilson said, “our Abyssinian holdings are more important than our Indian collection” (Bell 231). In reaction, Richard Pankhurst, the Director of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, responded that the collection was acquired through plunder. Defending the retaining of Maqdala manuscripts in Europe, Ullendorff wrote:neither Dr. Pankhurst nor the Ethiopian and western scholars who have worked on this collection (and indeed on others in Europe) could have contributed so significantly to the elucidation of Ethiopian history without the rich resources available in this country. Had they remained insitu, none of this would have been possible. (Qtd. in Bell 234)The manuscripts are therefore valued based on their contribution to western scholarship only. This is a continuation of epistemic violence whereby local knowledges are used as raw materials to produce Eurocentric knowledge, which in turn is used to teach Africans as though they had no prior knowledge. Scholars are defined as those western educated persons who can speak European languages and can travel to modern institutions to access the manuscripts. Knowledge grabbing regards previous owners as inexistent or irrelevant for the use of the grabbed knowledges.Knowledge grabbing also means indigenous scholars are deprived of critical resources to produce new knowledge based on their intellectual heritage. A Qene teacher commented: our students could not devote their time and energy to produce new knowledges in the same way our ancestors did. We have the tradition of Madeladel, Kimera, Kuteta, Mielad, Qene and tirguamme where students develop their own system of remembering, reinterpreting, practicing, and rewriting previous manuscripts and current ones. Without access to older manuscripts, we increasingly depend on preserving what is being taught orally by elders. (Interview, 4 Sep. 2019)This point is important as it relates to the common myth that indigenous knowledges are artefacts belonging to the past, not the present. There are millions of people who still use these knowledges, but the conditions necessary for their reproduction and improvement is denied through knowledge grabbing. The view of Ge’ez manuscripts as artefacts dismisses the Ethiopian view that Birana manuscripts are living persons. As a scholar told me in Gondar, “they are creations of Egziabher (God), like all of us. Keeping them in institutions is like keeping living bodies in graveyards” (interview, 5 Oct. 2019).Recently, the collection of Ethiopian manuscripts by western institutions has also been conducted digitally. Thousands of manuscripts have been microfilmed or digitised. For example, the EU funded Ethio-SPaRe project resulted in the digital collection of 2000 Ethiopian manuscripts (Nosnitsin). While digitisation promises better access for people who may not be able to visit institutions to see physical copies, online manuscripts are not accessible to indigenous school students in Ethiopia. They simply do not have computer or internet access and the manuscripts are catalogued in European languages. Both physical and digital knowledge grabbing results in the robbing of Ethiopian intellectual heritage, and denies the possibility of such manuscripts being used to inform local scholarship. Epistemic Violence: The European as ExpertWhen considered in relation to stolen or appropriated manuscripts, epistemic violence is the way in which local knowledge is interpreted using a foreign epistemology and gained dominance over indigenous worldviews. European scholars have monopolised the field of Ethiopian Studies by producing books, encyclopaedias and digital archives based on Ethiopian manuscripts, almost exclusively in European languages. The contributions of their work for western scholarship is undeniable. However, Kebede argues that one of the detrimental effects of this orientalist literature is the thesis of Semiticisation, the designation of the origin of Ethiopian civilisation to the arrival of Middle Eastern colonisers rather than indigenous sources.The thesis is invented to make the history of Ethiopia consistent with the Hegelian western view that Africa is a Dark Continent devoid of a civilisation of its own. “In light of the dominant belief that black peoples are incapable of great achievements, the existence of an early and highly advanced civilization constitutes a serious anomaly in the Eurocentric construction of the world” (Kebede 4). To address this anomaly, orientalists like Ludolph attributed the origin of Ethiopia’s writing system, agriculture, literature, and civilisation to the arrival of South Arabian settlers. For example, in his translation of the Kebra Nagast, Budge wrote: “the SEMITES found them [indigenous Ethiopians] negro savages, and taught them civilization and culture and the whole scriptures on which their whole literature is based” (x).In line with the above thesis, Dillman wrote that “the Abyssinians borrowed their Numerical Signs from the Greeks” (33). The views of these orientalist scholars have been challenged. For instance, leading scholar of Semitic languages Professor Ephraim Isaac considers the thesis of the Arabian origin of Ethiopian civilization “a Hegelian Eurocentric philosophical perspective of history” (2). Isaac shows that there is historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence that suggest Ethiopia to be more advanced than South Arabia from pre-historic times. Various Ethiopian sources including the Kebra Nagast, the works of historian Asres Yenesew, and Ethiopian linguist Girma Demeke provide evidence for the indigenous origin of Ethiopian civilisation and languages.The epistemic violence of the Semeticisation thesis lies in how this Eurocentric ideological construction is the dominant narrative in the field of Ethiopian history and the education system. Unlike the indigenous view, the orientalist view is backed by strong institutional power both in Ethiopia and abroad. The orientalists control the field of Ethiopian studies and have access to Ge’ez manuscripts. Their publications are the only references for Ethiopian students. Due to Native Colonialism, a system of power run by native elites through the use of colonial ideas and practices (Woldeyes), the education system is the imitation of western curricula, including English as a medium of instruction from high school onwards. Students study the west more than Ethiopia. Indigenous sources are generally excluded as unscientific. Only the Eurocentric interpretation of Ethiopian manuscripts is regarded as scientific and objective.ConclusionEthiopia is the only African country never to be colonised. In its history it produced a large quantity of manuscripts in the Ge’ez language through an indigenous education system that involves the study of these manuscripts. Since the 19th century, there has been an ongoing loss of these manuscripts. European travellers who came to Ethiopia as discoverers, missionaries and scholars took a large number of manuscripts. The Battle of Maqdala involved the looting of the intellectual products of Ethiopia that were collected at the capital. With the introduction of western education and use of English as a medium of instruction, the state disregarded indigenous schools whose students have little access to the manuscripts. This article brings the issue of knowledge grapping, a situation whereby European institutions and scholars accumulate Ethiopia manuscripts without providing the students in Ethiopia to have access to those collections.Items such as manuscripts that are held in western institutions are not dead artefacts of the past to be preserved for prosperity. They are living sources of knowledge that should be put to use in their intended contexts. Local Ethiopian scholars cannot study ancient and medieval Ethiopia without travelling and gaining access to western institutions. This lack of access and resources has made European Ethiopianists almost the sole producers of knowledge about Ethiopian history and culture. For example, indigenous sources and critical research that challenge the Semeticisation thesis are rarely available to Ethiopian students. Here we see epistemic violence in action. Western control over knowledge production has the detrimental effect of inventing new identities, subjectivities and histories that translate into material effects in the lives of African people. In this way, Ethiopians and people all over Africa internalise western understandings of themselves and their history as primitive and in need of development or outside intervention. African’s intellectual and cultural heritage, these living bodies locked away in graveyards, must be put back into the hands of Africans.AcknowledgementThe author acknowledges the support of the Australian Academy of the Humanities' 2019 Humanities Travelling Fellowship Award in conducting this research.ReferencesBell, Stephen. “Cultural Treasures Looted from Maqdala: A Summary of Correspondence in British National Newspapers since 1981.” Kasa and Kasa. Eds. Tadesse Beyene, Richard Pankhurst, and Shifereraw Bekele. Addis Ababa: Ababa University Book Centre, 1990. 231-246.Budge, Wallis. 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