ETHIOPIAN
332
ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE
save those of Abyssinia, which can scarcely be called ancient, showinjr that the country was thoroughly Egyiitianized. Lepsius has published the Ethiopian monuments in his Iknhndler (pt. v ; jd. 1-75), as well as the inscriptions in Ethiopian demotic (pt. vi ; pi. 1-11 ; see also 12, 13). — Kitto, s. v.
For the Christian history and relations of Ethiopia, see Titehnaun, De fide, religione et moribus ^EtMopum (Antwerp, 1534) ; De Goes, id. (Par. 1511, and since) ; Dresser, De statu eccles. yEthiopiae (Lips. 1581) ; De Ve- reta, Ulstoria de Etiopia CS'alfiutia, 1590) ; Predicadjres en la Etopia (ib. 1011) ; Godiger, De rebus Ahassinorum (Lugd. 1015); Machalt, De rebus in yEthiqna (Paris, l()"24-0) ; Da Viega, Christ, religio in ^Ethiopia (Laus. 1028) ; Dannhauer, Ecclesm yEthlopica (Argent. IGOl) ; Liidolf, Ilistoiia yEthiopica (Fr. ad M. 1081 ; with the supplemental Specimeji, ib. 1687; Comment anus, ib. 10[)1 ; and Adpendix, ib. 1693; the original work in English, Lond. 1C84 ; abridged in French, Par. 1684) ; Cavatus, Desciiptio Congo, Matamhe et Angola (Bonn, 1687); Geddes, Jlist. of Ethiopia (Lond. 1696); Wind- ham, Einleitung in d. iithiop. Theologie (Helmst. 1719) ; Lobo, Iter hist, in Abyssiniam (publ. only in a transl. Rdatlmi hislorique d' Abyssinie, Par. 1727, Amst. 1728) ; La Croze, Christianisme d'Efhiojne (Hague, 1739, in Germ. 1740) ; Oertel, Theologia ^thiopujii (Wittemb. 1746) ; Kocker, Fasti Habissinorum (Berne, f7G0) ; Bruce, Travels in Abyssinia (Edinb. 1790). See Abys- sinia.
Ethio'piau (Al-^io^p, Acts viii, 27 ; "^'d^S, Kushi' , Num. xii, 1 ; 2 Chron. xii, 3 ; xiv, 9, 12, 13 ; xvi, 8 ; xxi, 16 ; Jer. xiii, 23 ; xxxviii, 7, 10, 12 ; xxxix, 16 ; Dan. xi, 43 ; Amos ix, 7 ; Zeph. ii, 12 ; i. e. Cushite ; elsewhere as a rendering of the simple \r^3, Kush}, an inhabitant of the land of Ethiopia (q. v.) or Cush : properljf "Cushite" (Jer. xiii, 23); used of Zerah (2 Chron. xiv, 9 [8]) and Ebedmelech (.Jer. xxxviii, 7, 10, 12 ; xxxix, 16). See also Cushi.
ETHIOPL\N EUNUCH (dvt)p AlSrio^, fvvovxoi;'), a person described (Acts viii, 27) as a chief officer (vi- zier) of the Ethiopian queen Candace (cvvaaTi^q 'Kav- ^('iKijQ T)jc /3rt(T(Xi'(Tcr//f AlSrioTToJi''), who was converted to Christianity through the instrumentality of the evangelist Philip (q. v.). Ethiopic tradition calls him Indic/i (see Bzovii Annal. ad 1524, p. 542; but comp. Ludolf, Hist. uEth. iii, 2), and Irenreus (iii, 12) and Euscbius (llist. Eccl. ii, 1) make him the founder of Ciiristianity in Aralda Felix and Ethiopia, but accord- ing to Sophronius he preached in the island of Ceylon, and suffered martyrdom there. His official title does not necessarily indicate an emasculated person [see EuNCcn], but probablj' here denotes a prime minister of state rather than a simple cubicularius or chamber- lain (q. v.). Kuinol (ad loc.) thinks he was a Jew of the Diaspora; and certainly he was at least a pi'ose- lyte (q. v.). As to the place of his power, it is not quite certain that the passage in Pliny {llist. Nat. vi, 5) refers to Meroc as the seat of government of the fe- male sovereigns (comp. ftaaiKsag, Strabo, xvii, 2, 3) ; l)ut possibly rather to Napata (Trti'«7rr;, Dion Cass, liv, 5), the capital of a different part of Ethiopia (Raw- linson, Herodotus, ii, 35), or perhaps an uncertain lo- cality (Pitter, Erdk. i, 592). On the historical ele- ments of the question, see Laurent, Neutestamcn. Htu- dien (Gotha, 1866), p. 140 sq. ; Blbliotheca Sacra, July, 1866, p. 515 ; on the religious teachings of the narra- tive, see Sam. Smith, Sermon on the Eth. Eunuch's Con- version (Lond. 1632). See Canuace.
ETHIOPIAN WOMAN (Heb. Kushith', n^as, fern, of Cushite; Sept. Ai'0to7r((Tcra,Vulg. yEthiopissa). Zipijorah, the wife of Moses, is so described in Num. xii, ]. She is elsewhere said to have been the daugh- ter (if a Midianite (Exod. ii, 21, compared with 16), and, in consequonce of this, Ewald and others Tiiive sup- posed that the allusion is to another wife whom Moses
married after the death of Zipporah ; but the Arabian Ethiopia is probably referred to in this case. See Zip- porah.
ETIIIO'PIANS (d!lS, Isa. xx, 4; Jer. xlvi, 9, "^0^3 ; Sept. AlOioTrec, Vulg. yEthiojria, yEthiopes), properly "Cush" or "Ethiopia" in two passages (Isa. XX, 4; Jer. xlvi, 9) ; elsewhere " Cushites," or inhab- itants of Ethiopia (2 Chron. xii, 3; xiv, 12 [11], 13 [12] ; xvi, 8 ; xxi, 16 ; Dan. xi, 43 ; Amos ix, 7 ; Zeph. ii, 12). See Cushite.
Ethiopic Language. As it is maintained by competent judges that the Amharic and the Ti;_a-e are really dialects of the ancient Ethiopic or Geez (which is doubted by Adelung and Yater in the Mithridates), it may be expected, from the recent progress of com- parative grammar, that future scholars will apph- them to elucidate the structure of the other Sj'ro-Arabian languages. At present, however, as even the Amha- ric is not yet able to boast of adequate and accessible means for its studj', and as neither possesses any an- cient version of any part of the Bible, the Geez is the only one which claims a particular notice here. See Amharic Language.
The ancient Ethiopic or Geez, which is the only one of the three dialects that either has been or is now generalh' used in written documents of a sacred or civil kind, is to be classed as an ancient branch of the Arabic. This affinit}" is evident from the entire gram- matical structure of the language ; it is confirmed by the relation of its written character to that of the Him- yarite alphabet ; and either supports, or is supported bj^, the assumption that Habesh or Abyssinia was act- ually peopled by a colony from Southern Arabia. The grammatical structure of the Geez shows a largely predominant identitj' with that of Arabic ; but it also possesses some traits which are in closer accordance with the other Syro-Arabian idioms, and some which are peculiar to itself alone. The main features of its structure are as follows : The verb possesses the first ten conjugations of the Arabic verb, with the excep- tion of the eighth and ninth ; besides these it has two other conjugations which are unknown to the Arabic. There is a special conjunctive mood ; the double infin- itive is often used as a noun, irrespective of the abso- lute or construct form ; the participle is wanting. The formation of nouns resembles most that of Hebrew ; l)Ut nouns often have superfluous end-vowels, which are modified in particular cases, and are analogous to the Arabic nunnation. As for the flexion of nouns, the masculine and feminine plurals are either formed by affixed syllables («.», at) on the princijile common to the whole Sj'ro-Arabian family, or b_y changes with- in the compass of the radical letters, after the manner of the so-called broken plurals of the Arabic grammar. The "construct state," and that relation of the noun which is equivalent to our objective case, are denoted by changes in the final vowels, or by eniphn-ing the relative jironoun ; the dati\e is indicated bj' preposi- tions. The comparative and superlative are expressed by means of particles. There is no form for the dual number either in the verb or the noun. Witli regard to the vocabulary of the language, one third of the roots are to be found in the same state in Arabic. By making allowance for commutations and transposi- tions, many otlier roots may be identified with their Arabic correspondents : some of its roots, however, do not exist in our present Arabic, but are to be found in Aramaic and Hebrew. Besides this, it has native roots peculiar to itself; it has adopted several Greek words, but shows no traces of the influence of Coptic.