From: wugi@brol.invalid   
      
   Op 10/10/2025 om 23:15 schreef Ross Clark:   
   > On 9/10/2025 6:20 a.m., HenHanna@NewsGrouper wrote:   
   >>   
   >> In  Amharic ,   [qum]   means  to Stop  (for males)   
      
   Translate gives ak'um. But first word given for stop is tewe.   
   á‰°á‹ˆ! አá‰�áˆ�!  Tewe! Ak'um!   
      
   I lived there (Addis Ababa) in '80-'81 but didn't learn much of the   
   alphabet or language, apart from a basic vocabulary and idiom. A pity.   
   Splendid country, people, landscapes, food, living, time. Before it came   
   to be known primarily for drought and famine. By now, as so many others,   
   in the claws of Chinese development, admittedly spectacular in some ways.   
      
   > Records indicate that I used to have a proper Amharic dictionary; it   
   > probably got lost in the move from office to home.   
   >   
   > But the Lonely Planet Ethiopian Amharic Phrasebook will do for now.   
   > It seems to mean "Stop!", like a cop might shout at you, or a sign.   
   > "for males" because Amharic inflects second person subject verbs for   
   > gender.   
   >   
   >> It looks  like   
   >>   
   >>          Φgo          Greek, phi (Φ)  go   
   >   
   > The "phi" part is /q/.   
      
   The plosive k'. Though Translate pronounces it as an aspirated kh   
   ("akhum"), unlike in ቅቤ, k'ebe, butter.   
      
   (...)   
   > The little branch to the right in Amharic makes it /qu/.   
   >   
   > The "go" part is really "oo" (connected, like a pince-nez) which is /m/.   
      
   It's like an "m" with closed loops and doubled middle stroke. A   
   pince-nez, indeed.   
      
   > The down-stroke makes it /mÉ™/, according to my source.   
      
   Rather, vowelless (in consonant clusters or final consonants) or shwa.   
   Eg, the raw meat dish kitfo writes k-t-fo AFAIR. (ክትᠠ 
   Ž, kitifo says   
   Translate, with first i shwa and second mute).   
      
   (...)   
   >   
   >>    This script (Amharic  writing) is related to Greek ?   
   >   
   > Yes.   
      
   < Ge'ez script, which < Ancient South Arabian script (Arabia Felix,   
   Hadramaut IIRC), which (like also the Phoenician script) < Proto-Sinaitic.   
      
   >>          It looks a bit  like  Thai.   
   >>   
   >   
   > Probably related to that, too.   
      
   < Brahmi script, _possibly_ descended from or influenced by Phoenician   
   (Aramaic) script, though others prefer to link it to the (yet   
   undeciphered) Indus script.   
      
   BTW Amharic is an abugida (a "CV" alphabet), a term taken from Ge'ez,   
   the parent of Amharic. By P.T. Daniels, a fellow sci.langer at some time   
   ) On suggestion by a Wolf Leslau, another interesting person, from   
   reading wiki...   
      
   --   
   guido wugi   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)