Uncovers African influences on the Western imagination during the eighteenth century, paying particular attention to the ways Ethiopia inspired and shaped the work of Samuel Johnson.

A compilation of favorite folktales exhibiting wisdom and experience

The main focus of the study is the deepening crisis of the Ethiopian education system. This study reconstructs the growth of the crisis of the sector during the last four decades. It then discusses the implications of the crisis in terms of communication breakdown; absence of analytical capacity at system level; the fragmentation of society; loss of political legitimacy and perpetuation of authoritarian power. Although the education sector has greatly expanded its impact on poverty alleviation has so far been insignificant. The poverty landscape has changed to the worse during the last fifty years. This is largely due to the fact that the Ethiopian education system is based on false premises. At the center of the crisis is the use of English as medium of instruction. The proficiency in English is so low that its continued use as a medium of instruction can only lead to the collapse of the education system. The study argues that it is only through language (readily understood and practiced) that collective life and the world can be interpreted in an integrated manner. The replacement of English by Ethiopian languages all the way from the primary to tertiary levels is one of the factors that could strengthen the survival potential of the Ethiopian political community. The study is relevant for policy makers and students of development studies on the role of education in social change in Africa south of the Sahara.

"People have been curious for many centuries about Ethiopia's stories left in stone. Recent archaeology is uncovering some fascinating answers. South of Axum, visitors can see the quarry where the tall stones that decorated Axum were carved--and can also see the form of a lioness that some human (or maybe, according to legend, the Archangel Michael) scratched onto the rock thousands of years ago. In 2012, a British archaeologist working in Ethiopia crawled under a stone carved with a sun and crescent moon, the and found a gold mine with an inscription in Sabaean, which, as she says, is "the language that the Queen of Sheba would have spoken." She adds, "The fact that we might have the Queen of Sheba's mines is extraordinary." In this book, you can see a few glimpses into some of the long stories of Ethiopia that are revealed in its cities and rural areas. An early-reader book in both English and Amharic."--Amazon.com.

This handbook provides a comprehensive account of the languages spoken in Ethiopia, exploring both their structures and features and their function and use in society. The first part of the volume provides background and general information relating to Ethiopian languages, including their demographic distribution and classification, language policy, scripts and writing, and language endangerment. Subsequent parts are dedicated to the four major language families in Ethiopia - Cushitic, Ethiosemitic, Nilo-Saharan, and Omotic - and contain studies of individual languages, with an initial introductory overview chapter in each part. Both major and less-documented languages are included, ranging from Amharic and Oromo to Zay, Gawwada, and Yemsa. The final part explores languages that are outside of those four families, namely Ethiopian Sign Language, Ethiopian English, and Arabic. With its international team of senior researchers and junior scholars, The Oxford Handbook of Ethiopian Languages will appeal to anyone interested in the languages of the region and in African linguistics more broadly.