Geʽez script
script used for languages in Ethiopia and Eritrea
Geʽez ( GEE-ez; Ge'ez: ግዕዝ, romanized: Gəʽəz, IPA: [ˈɡɨʕɨz] ) is an abugida used to write several Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an abjad (consonantal alphabet) and was first used to write the Geʽez language, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, and Haymanot Judaism of the Beta Israel Jewish community in Ethiopia. In the languages Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is often called fidäl (ፊደል), meaning "script" or "letter". Under the Unicode Standard and ISO 15924, it is defined as Ge'ez text.
The Geʽez script has been adapted to write other languages, mostly Ethiopian and Eritrean Semitic, particularly Amharic in Ethiopia, and Tigrinya in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It has also been used to write Sebat Bet and other Gurage languages and at least 20 other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it has traditionally been used for Tigre and just recently for Bilen. The Geʽez script has also recently been used to write Anuak, and used in limited extent to write some other Nilo-Saharan Nilotic languages, including Majang languages. It was also used in the past to write some Omotic languages, including Wolaytta, Bench, Hamer, and Kafa.
For the representation of sounds, this article uses a system that is common (though not universal) among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages.
“Geʽez script” enters the record as script used for languages in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Geʽez, script and used can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Geʽez script” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Geʽez, script and used provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q257634. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Geʽez script” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.