Ethiopic or Ge’ez (ግዕዝ) Alphabet

and transliteration to Latin & International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Ge’ez (the script) is an ancient African script that originated as an abjad (consonant-only alphabet) and – though it is now used for writing several languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia, including the closely related languages of Tigre, Tigrinya and Amharic – it was originally used to write it’s pre-Christian, namesake language, ልሳነ ግዕዝ, which currently survives only as the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

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Examples in American English to the pronunciations of the 7 orders of the አ syllabary group using phonetic values as indicated in Merriam-Webster:

    1. አ as in the first phoneme of the word “uncle” (ˈəŋ-kəl);
    2. ኡ as in the first phoneme of the prefix “über” (ü-bər);
    3. ኢ as in the first phoneme of the word “eager” (ˈē-gər);
    4. ኣ as in the first phoneme of the word “olive” (ˈä-liv);
    5. ኤ as in the first phoneme of the word “apron” (ˈā-prən);
    6. እ as in the first phoneme of the word “inner” (ˈi-nər); and
    7. ኦ as in the first phoneme of the word “offer” (ˈȯ-fər ).

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