Lewisohn reviews chittick

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Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-al-Arab and the Problem of Religious Diversity by William C.

ChittickReview by: Leonard LewisohnJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 118, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1998), pp. 293-295Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/605916 .

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Reviews of Bookseviews of Books

of the IsmaCiliyya, laiming further hatthe underlying religiousdoctrines of the Jabiriantexts are as germaneto the corpus asare their scientific and technological contents. The technicalterms used to describe the anatomy of the eye, planetarycon-junctions, and the theological formulationsof al-Kirmani, areevidence thatthe corpus dates from roughly the year 900.3. "Studien zu Jabir ibn Hayyan."Several points developedin the previous study, especially Jibir's connection to the Is-mailis and the thematicunityof Jabirian cience, aretakenfur-ther. Krausnotes that the corpus seems to give preponderanceboth to alchemy and to medicine, and suggests thatJabir was adoctor who later turned to alchemy. He suggests that Jabirandhis mentor Jacfarare mystically one, in a way similar to al-Hallaj's famous proclamationof his union with God.4. "Les dignitaires de la hi6rarchie religieuse selon 6;biribn Hayyan." Passages from Kitab al-Khamsin are translatedandsuppliedwith very rich notes. HereJabir'senterprise s saidto consist of the reconciliation of Islamic gnosticism with Hel-lenistic science. The hierarchy described does not reflect thesocial or religious structure of the Ismacilis, but ratherJabir'sattemptto promulgatea radically new doctrine.5. "ZuIbnal-MuqaffaC."wopoints raisedby F Gabrieli arecriticized. The translator of Aristotle's logical works is iden-tified as Muhammad bn al-Muqaffa, the son of the famous lit-terateur; he writings were translated rom Greek or Syriac, notPersian,and representthe earliest stage of the reception of theAristoteliancorpusin Islamic civilization. ContraGabrieli,whoattributedto the translator Ibn al-Muqaffacthe skeptical pas-sages in the introduction to Kalila wa-Dimna, it is shown thatthese two had a Persianvorlage.

6. "Das Kitab az-Zumurruddes Ibn al-Rawandi." In this,the longest study in the collection, Kraus publishes some ex-tracts from the voluminous Majalis Mu'ayyadiyya, again mak-ing use of a manuscriptowned by his friend H. F. Hamdani.This document reveals new informationconcerning the teach-ings of the archheretic Ibn al-Rawandi, which, in turn, is ofgreatvalue in assessing the role played by religious polemics inshaping the way Islam defined itself in the early stages of itsexistence. In effect, Kraus endorses the position of SacadyaGaon, i.e., thatIbn al-Rawandiand others as well put theirownheterodox views into the mouths of the Indian "Brahmans."Kraus argues for an early date for this thinker (ca. 250 A.H.),and traces his evolution from criticism of the MuCtazilatoabandonmentof the faith, as well as the connections betweenhis writings and some lateraccounts of the "Brahmans."7. "Les 'Controverses'de Fakhral-Din al-Razi." A conciseand rich presentationof the activities and views of a great andlittle-studied thinker,including an analysis and partialpublica-tion of a shortautobiographicalwork.8. "La Conduite du philosophe: Trait6 d'6thique d'AbuMuhammadb. Zakariyya'al-Razi." This discussion of al-Razi'sapologia pro vita sua inauguratesone of Kraus'majorprojects(see also the following item), namely the publication and anal-

of the IsmaCiliyya, laiming further hatthe underlying religiousdoctrines of the Jabiriantexts are as germaneto the corpus asare their scientific and technological contents. The technicalterms used to describe the anatomy of the eye, planetarycon-junctions, and the theological formulationsof al-Kirmani, areevidence thatthe corpus dates from roughly the year 900.3. "Studien zu Jabir ibn Hayyan."Several points developedin the previous study, especially Jibir's connection to the Is-mailis and the thematicunityof Jabirian cience, aretakenfur-ther. Krausnotes that the corpus seems to give preponderanceboth to alchemy and to medicine, and suggests thatJabir was adoctor who later turned to alchemy. He suggests that Jabirandhis mentor Jacfarare mystically one, in a way similar to al-Hallaj's famous proclamationof his union with God.4. "Les dignitaires de la hi6rarchie religieuse selon 6;biribn Hayyan." Passages from Kitab al-Khamsin are translatedandsuppliedwith very rich notes. HereJabir'senterprise s saidto consist of the reconciliation of Islamic gnosticism with Hel-lenistic science. The hierarchy described does not reflect thesocial or religious structure of the Ismacilis, but ratherJabir'sattemptto promulgatea radically new doctrine.5. "ZuIbnal-MuqaffaC."wopoints raisedby F Gabrieli arecriticized. The translator of Aristotle's logical works is iden-tified as Muhammad bn al-Muqaffa, the son of the famous lit-terateur; he writings were translated rom Greek or Syriac, notPersian,and representthe earliest stage of the reception of theAristoteliancorpusin Islamic civilization. ContraGabrieli,whoattributedto the translator Ibn al-Muqaffacthe skeptical pas-sages in the introduction to Kalila wa-Dimna, it is shown thatthese two had a Persianvorlage.

6. "Das Kitab az-Zumurruddes Ibn al-Rawandi." In this,the longest study in the collection, Kraus publishes some ex-tracts from the voluminous Majalis Mu'ayyadiyya, again mak-ing use of a manuscriptowned by his friend H. F. Hamdani.This document reveals new informationconcerning the teach-ings of the archheretic Ibn al-Rawandi, which, in turn, is ofgreatvalue in assessing the role played by religious polemics inshaping the way Islam defined itself in the early stages of itsexistence. In effect, Kraus endorses the position of SacadyaGaon, i.e., thatIbn al-Rawandiand others as well put theirownheterodox views into the mouths of the Indian "Brahmans."Kraus argues for an early date for this thinker (ca. 250 A.H.),and traces his evolution from criticism of the MuCtazilatoabandonmentof the faith, as well as the connections betweenhis writings and some lateraccounts of the "Brahmans."7. "Les 'Controverses'de Fakhral-Din al-Razi." A conciseand rich presentationof the activities and views of a great andlittle-studied thinker,including an analysis and partialpublica-tion of a shortautobiographicalwork.8. "La Conduite du philosophe: Trait6 d'6thique d'AbuMuhammadb. Zakariyya'al-Razi." This discussion of al-Razi'sapologia pro vita sua inauguratesone of Kraus'majorprojects(see also the following item), namely the publication and anal-

ysis of the works of the maverick philosopher and medicalwriter Abf Bakr Muhammad(the name is displayed errone-ously in the title) al-Razi.9. "Extraits du kitab alam al-nubuwwa d'Abu Hatim al-Razi." These passages, which record personal confrontationsbetween the two Razis, reveal Abf Bakr at his boldest, dispar-aging prophetic writings andassertingthatthe books on astron-omy and medicine are of far greater utility for humanity.10. "Un fragmentpr6tendude la recension d'Eustochiusdesoeuvres de Plotin." A rebuttal of the claim of P. Henry thatEusebius utilized a purportededition of the Enneads preparedby Eustochius,rather hanthe only extantone, that of Porphyry.11. "Plotinchez les arabes:Remarquessur un nouveaufrag-ment de la paraphrase rabedes Enn6ades."A majoradvance inPlotinianstudies, with a wealth of detail concerningthe reader-ship of the Arabic versions of the Theology of Aristotle, thediscovery of more Plotinian materialsin a treatise attributed oal-Farabi,and strongphilological evidence thatSyriac versionshadsanitized the Enneadsof pagantendencies before they weretranslated nto Arabic. This study was meant as an introductionto a major study that Kraus had preparedbut never saw pub-lished; most of the same materialscan be found in A. Badawi'sPlotinus apud Arabes.

Y. Tzvi LANGERMANNJEWISHATIONALNDUNIVERSITYIBRARY,ERUSALEM

Imaginal Worlds:Ibn al-'Arabi and the Problem of ReligiousDiversity.By WILLIAM. CHITTICK.lbany:STATE NIVER-SITYOFNEWYORK RESS, 994. Pp. vii + 208. $18.95.It is no exaggeration to say that the works of William C.Chittick stand in the forefrontof the recent stream of serious

scholarly monographs on Ibn CArabi,among which must bementioned Michel Chodkiewicz's The Seal of the Saints (Cam-bridge, 1993) and An Ocean WithoutShore: Ibn CArabi, heBook and the Law (Albany, 1993), as well as Claude Addas'Questfor the Red Sulphur:The Life of Ibn CArabiCambridge,1993). The presentwork is the fruit of some twenty-five yearsof study of the works of Ibn CArabi, omplementing Chittick'searlierstudy,TheSufiPath of Knowledge:Ibnal-CArabi'sMeta-physics of Imagination Albany, 1989). Whereas he earlierworkoffers us a vast encyclopedia of the gnostic teachings of Sufismby way of careful selection and presentation,through ntroduc-tory exposition, of passages from the Futiuhat l-Makkiyya,thepresent work is slightly more restricted in scope, being a col-lection of some of his most importantandseminal essays on theShaykhal-Akbar,originally writtenbetween 1984 and 1992 forconferences or edited volumes, but totally revised as indepen-dent chaptersin this new work.

ysis of the works of the maverick philosopher and medicalwriter Abf Bakr Muhammad(the name is displayed errone-ously in the title) al-Razi.9. "Extraits du kitab alam al-nubuwwa d'Abu Hatim al-Razi." These passages, which record personal confrontationsbetween the two Razis, reveal Abf Bakr at his boldest, dispar-aging prophetic writings andassertingthatthe books on astron-omy and medicine are of far greater utility for humanity.10. "Un fragmentpr6tendude la recension d'Eustochiusdesoeuvres de Plotin." A rebuttal of the claim of P. Henry thatEusebius utilized a purportededition of the Enneads preparedby Eustochius,rather hanthe only extantone, that of Porphyry.11. "Plotinchez les arabes:Remarquessur un nouveaufrag-ment de la paraphrase rabedes Enn6ades."A majoradvance inPlotinianstudies, with a wealth of detail concerningthe reader-ship of the Arabic versions of the Theology of Aristotle, thediscovery of more Plotinian materialsin a treatise attributed oal-Farabi,and strongphilological evidence thatSyriac versionshadsanitized the Enneadsof pagantendencies before they weretranslated nto Arabic. This study was meant as an introductionto a major study that Kraus had preparedbut never saw pub-lished; most of the same materialscan be found in A. Badawi'sPlotinus apud Arabes.

Y. Tzvi LANGERMANNJEWISHATIONALNDUNIVERSITYIBRARY,ERUSALEM

Imaginal Worlds:Ibn al-'Arabi and the Problem of ReligiousDiversity.By WILLIAM. CHITTICK.lbany:STATE NIVER-SITYOFNEWYORK RESS, 994. Pp. vii + 208. $18.95.It is no exaggeration to say that the works of William C.Chittick stand in the forefrontof the recent stream of serious

scholarly monographs on Ibn CArabi,among which must bementioned Michel Chodkiewicz's The Seal of the Saints (Cam-bridge, 1993) and An Ocean WithoutShore: Ibn CArabi, heBook and the Law (Albany, 1993), as well as Claude Addas'Questfor the Red Sulphur:The Life of Ibn CArabiCambridge,1993). The presentwork is the fruit of some twenty-five yearsof study of the works of Ibn CArabi, omplementing Chittick'searlierstudy,TheSufiPath of Knowledge:Ibnal-CArabi'sMeta-physics of Imagination Albany, 1989). Whereas he earlierworkoffers us a vast encyclopedia of the gnostic teachings of Sufismby way of careful selection and presentation,through ntroduc-tory exposition, of passages from the Futiuhat l-Makkiyya,thepresent work is slightly more restricted in scope, being a col-lection of some of his most importantandseminal essays on theShaykhal-Akbar,originally writtenbetween 1984 and 1992 forconferences or edited volumes, but totally revised as indepen-dent chaptersin this new work.

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.2 (1998)

Since many of the theological problems dealt with are quiterecondite,Chittickskillfullyenhancespassagesof key quotationsfrom the Magister Magnus with his own illuminating com-mentary on the subtle nuances of meaning. The first sectionof the book, entitled "HumanPerfection," eatures fourchapterson "Oneness of Being," "Microcosm, Macrocosm, and PerfectMan,""Ethics andAntinominianism," nd"Self-Knowledgeandthe OriginalHumanDisposition."Chittick'sstudyof the "One-ness of Being,"where some fifteen differentconnotations of theterm in Akbarianthoughtare listed, is a-if not the-seminalessay on the philosophical meanings of wahdat al-wujid inWesternscholarship.Also noteworthy s the chapteron "Ethicsand Antinominianism,"where Chittick tackles and refutes thecriticism often made by Muslimjurists that from the transcen-dental perspective of wahdat, normal distinctions of good andevil cease to apply and the prescriptionsof the Sharicamay beignored.

Throughthe tapestryof the Shaykh al-Akbar'sthoughtrunsthe threadof thatsubtlemodeof understanding: maginalreflec-tion (khaydl)-and thus the second section of the book is ap-propriatelyentitled "Worldsof Imagination."In its narrowestsense, the word imagination, in Ibn CArabi'shought,refers to

a specific faculty of the soul thatbrings togethersensorythings which have shapes andforms, andconsciousness,which has no shape or form. Thus dream images areperceived in sensory form, yet they are animated by aformless awareness,or, as the Shaykhoften puts it, theymanifest "meanings"(maCani),which are supersensoryrealities.... In a slightly more extended sense, imagi-nation refers to the realm of the soul, a level of beingand consciousness that is situated between spirit andbody. (p. 54)

In the first essay in this section, on "Revelation and PoeticImagery,"Chittickredressessome of the misinterpretationsmadeby R. A. Nicholson in the introduction o his translationof theTarjuman l-ashwdq, and while pointing out that the latter leftout mostof what was "interestingandimportant"n the Shaykh'scommentaryon his poems (p. 68), Chittick situates the Akbar-ian theoryof poetic imagery in the context of the "intermediateworlds [of imaginationwhich] have been all but banishedfromWesternthought" (p. 69). This is followed by an intricate ex-amination of the imaginal faculty (khayal) and its relation toother key concepts: poetic taste (dhawq), spiritual "meaning"(maCnd),similitude (mathal) and theophany (tajalli) in IbnCArabi'sworks. Two other essays in this section, on "Meetingswith Imaginal Men" and "Death and the Afterlife," representimportantstudies of the world of imaginationin the context ofAkbarianthought.My only regret is that Prof. Chittick did notchoose to republish in this section his excellent study of thissame world, "The Five Divine Presences: from al-Qunawi toal-Qaysari"(TheMuslim World62 [1988]: 107-28).

The last section, on "Religious Diversity,"with chapterson"A Myth of Origins,""Diversity of Belief," and "The DivineRoots of Religion," is an importantaddition to the study ofcomparative religion in the Islamic milieu; in many ways thissection, by providingspecific illustrations rom IbnCArabi's rit-ings, is much more useful than the more generalized treatmentsof this theme by F Schuon and S. H. Nasr. Chittick'schapteron"A Myth of Origins"is particularlyfascinating, especially be-cause it addresses the fundamentalproblem of Islam's attitudetoward otherreligions. While Ibn CArabi id "maintain he par-ticular excellence of the Koran and the superiorityof Muham-mad over all other prophets,"he denied that Islam abrogatedother religions or rejected "the universal validity of revelationor the necessity of revelation'sappearing n particularizedex-pressions" (pp. 125-26). The chapterconcludes with a transla-tion of "AMythof Origins"of "revealedreligion"(ch. 66 of theFutuhdt)which, Chittick notes (p. 128), is slightly reminiscentof IbnTufayl'stale of Hayy ibn Yaqzan.In fact, the tale is alsoquite similar in form to, andpossibly derived from, an allegoryrelated by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in the Ihyda' ulum al-din.'Chapter nine, on "Diversity of Belief," is another sensitivetreatment of Ibn CArabi'sposition on non-Islamic religions,examiningthe Akbariannotionof belief andnoting that the ideathat "all beliefs are true rises up logically from wahdat al-wujiid"(p. 140). The belief of the ordinary(non-Sufi) Muslim,constricted by personal subjectivity so that "no one has everseen anythingexcept his own belief" (p. 150), is contrastedtothe "nondelimitedbelief" of the perfect Sufi gnostics who rec-ognize that

all beliefs are true and lead to God. Throughexperienc-ing the unveiling of the divine self-disclosures, they un-derstandthe legitimacy of every belief and the wisdombehind every knot tied in the fabric of Reality, everypossibility on ontological and epistemological delimita-tion representedby humansubjects. (p. 154)

In the last chapter,on "The Divine Roots of Religion," the au-thor describes the natureof each individual'sreligion as merely"a distinctive knotting of nondelimited Reality" (p. 163) andthus both as limited and as broadas imagination itself is. "Thegods of belief are fabricated. Absolutely no one worships Godas He is in Himself," Ibn CArabi eclares (p. 165). We are leftwith these words of the Shaykh al-Akbar as parting counsel:"Be in yourself a matterfor the forms of all beliefs, for God iswider and more tremendousthanthat He should be constrictedby one knotting (i.e., belief) ratherthan another"(p. 176).In his introduction,Chittick points out that, on the issue ofreligious diversity,whereas"some Muslim scholarshave tended

1 Book 35; vol. IV,pp. 217 ff. (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, n.d.; rpt.of Cairo ed., 1352/1933).

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Reviews of Bookseviews of Books

towardexclusivism, some towardopenness andinclusivism, andothers toward a clear enunciation of the necessity of plural-ity ... Ibn al-CArabiepresents probablythe most sophisticatedand profoundthinker n the last category" (p. 6). Endorsingthispoint of view, I would maintainthatImaginal Worldsrepresentsan invaluable contribution o understandingheencounterof tra-ditional Islamic values with the sensate culture of today. As acontribution o religious studies in general, whereasworks suchas Wilfred Cantwell Smith's TheEnd and Meaning of Religionand John Hick's Problems of Religious Pluralism have ex-poundedtolerantphilosophies of religious pluralismin a Chris-tian context, Imaginal Worldsprovides a fine example of howthe multiplicity of religious traditions is acknowledged andunderstoodby traditionalIslam.

towardexclusivism, some towardopenness andinclusivism, andothers toward a clear enunciation of the necessity of plural-ity ... Ibn al-CArabiepresents probablythe most sophisticatedand profoundthinker n the last category" (p. 6). Endorsingthispoint of view, I would maintainthatImaginal Worldsrepresentsan invaluable contribution o understandingheencounterof tra-ditional Islamic values with the sensate culture of today. As acontribution o religious studies in general, whereasworks suchas Wilfred Cantwell Smith's TheEnd and Meaning of Religionand John Hick's Problems of Religious Pluralism have ex-poundedtolerantphilosophies of religious pluralismin a Chris-tian context, Imaginal Worldsprovides a fine example of howthe multiplicity of religious traditions is acknowledged andunderstoodby traditionalIslam.

LEONARDEWISOHNSCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES,UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

LEONARDEWISOHNSCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES,UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

ReferenceGrammarof Amharic.By WOLFLESLAU.Wiesbaden:OTTOHARRASSOWITZ,995. Pp. xlv + 1044. DM 228.This thoroughand detailed grammarof Amharic,represent-ing over thirty years of research, supplants all previous suchworks and so representsa significant event in the modern his-

tory of Amharic.It is yet anothersignificantevent in the careerof Wolf Leslau (now in his ninety-firstyear), doyen of Ethio-pian studies.Amharic is an importantworld language of perhaps fifteenmillion speakers, somewhat fewer in Africa than Arabic, Swa-hili, Hausa, and Oromo. It is the second most populous Semiticlanguage, after Arabic, and the lingua franca and constitution-ally recognized national language of Ethiopia. Besides its sta-tus as an importantnational language and lingua franca of theHornof Africa as well as Ethiopia, Amharicdeserves attentionas the most studied and best attested of the Ethiopian Semiticlanguages and, as such, is the best representativeof this histor-ically and typologically interestinggroup. With the appearanceof this grammar,modernAmharicis perhapsnow as accessibleto comparativestudy as its much more famous cousins, modernArabic and Hebrew,andperhapsmoreaccessible thanany otherAfrican language, including Swahili, for which I doubt thereexists a grammaras thoroughas this one.The traditionalterritoryof the Amharas is the mountainousnorth-centralpartof Ethiopia consisting of the regions of Be-gemder(Gondarregion);westernWello, Gojjam,andMenz. To-day, however, perhapsthe majorityof town and city-dwellingEthiopians,except in largely Tigrinya-speakingTigre province,are at least second-language speakers of Amharic. Despite the

ReferenceGrammarof Amharic.By WOLFLESLAU.Wiesbaden:OTTOHARRASSOWITZ,995. Pp. xlv + 1044. DM 228.This thoroughand detailed grammarof Amharic,represent-ing over thirty years of research, supplants all previous suchworks and so representsa significant event in the modern his-

tory of Amharic.It is yet anothersignificantevent in the careerof Wolf Leslau (now in his ninety-firstyear), doyen of Ethio-pian studies.Amharic is an importantworld language of perhaps fifteenmillion speakers, somewhat fewer in Africa than Arabic, Swa-hili, Hausa, and Oromo. It is the second most populous Semiticlanguage, after Arabic, and the lingua franca and constitution-ally recognized national language of Ethiopia. Besides its sta-tus as an importantnational language and lingua franca of theHornof Africa as well as Ethiopia, Amharicdeserves attentionas the most studied and best attested of the Ethiopian Semiticlanguages and, as such, is the best representativeof this histor-ically and typologically interestinggroup. With the appearanceof this grammar,modernAmharicis perhapsnow as accessibleto comparativestudy as its much more famous cousins, modernArabic and Hebrew,andperhapsmoreaccessible thanany otherAfrican language, including Swahili, for which I doubt thereexists a grammaras thoroughas this one.The traditionalterritoryof the Amharas is the mountainousnorth-centralpartof Ethiopia consisting of the regions of Be-gemder(Gondarregion);westernWello, Gojjam,andMenz. To-day, however, perhapsthe majorityof town and city-dwellingEthiopians,except in largely Tigrinya-speakingTigre province,are at least second-language speakers of Amharic. Despite the

recent independence of Eritrea,one still often hears Amharicregularly n the streets of Asmara,andthe influenceof Amharicextends into the Ethiopian borderregions of Somalia, Sudan,and Kenya. (Recently in Chicago I had a passable conversationin Amharic with a taxi driver from Somalia who had visitedEthiopia only once.) Except in the core Amharaareas of Shoa,Gojjam,and Begemder, Amharicspeakersin Ethiopiaareoftenbilingual, and probablymost have anotherEthiopian languageas their native language.There are recognizable regional varieties or dialects ofAmharic:of Shoa, Begemder,Gojjam,andMenz-Wello, butthedifferences among them are minor, mainly concerning pronun-ciation. Not just the political capital, Addis Ababais nowadaysthe focus of Ethiopianeconomic andsocial life, andits Amharichas become the prestige variety.There are Amharicmanuscriptsfrom the fourteenthcentury,and publication in Amharic has increased steadily since the be-ginning of this century.Therewas a flourishingof Amhariccre-ative writing in the immediate post-revolutionaryperiod after1975, and Amharic publications today include writings of allsorts:poetry,newspapers,literaryand news magazines, drama,novels, history, textbooks, etc. Anotherproductof the revolu-tion was widespread emigration of Ethiopians; Amharic lan-guage magazines are now published in the U.S. and Europetoserve these flourishingEthiopianpopulations.In Ethiopia, Amharic has spreadconsiderably into territoryearlier populated by speakers of other languages-in ancienttimes the southern Agaw language of north-centralEthiopia,and since the nineteenthcentury, anguagesof the south such asCushitic Sidamo and Omotic Kafa. As a result, Amharic hasacquired considerable lexical and grammaticalsimilarity withthese other Afroasiatic languages, but shows surprisinglylittleof the grammaticalregularizationand thoroughparadigm evel-ing often associated with extensive use as a second language-though, as in other Ethiopian Semitic languages, some Semiticfeatures are leveled, including broken plurals and gender dis-tinction in the pluralverb.Norhasconsiderableword-borrowinged to grammar hange.Amharic has efficient word-derivationalresources of its own,but can borrow words from GeCez with almost no need fornativization,a practicenowadays favoredby puristsfor the sat-isfaction of needs for technical, political, or other new vo-cabulary.Borrowings from Italian during the 1936-41 Italianoccupation did not at all penetratethe basic vocabulary,nor dowords from English, the principal source of borrowed wordsnowadays,perhapsbecause the root-and-patternmorphologicaltype makes the adaptationof Indo-europeanwords somewhatproblematic.(E.g.: derivedby Amharicsuffix,saraat-anndt un-employment'; an English loan: sogalist 'socialist'; and con-structedfrom GeCezwords, sara abyot 'counter-revolutionary'.)A national language academy was established in Ethiopiain1972, with the purpose largely of standardizingthe languageand, especially, of guiding the expansion of Amharictechnical

recent independence of Eritrea,one still often hears Amharicregularly n the streets of Asmara,andthe influenceof Amharicextends into the Ethiopian borderregions of Somalia, Sudan,and Kenya. (Recently in Chicago I had a passable conversationin Amharic with a taxi driver from Somalia who had visitedEthiopia only once.) Except in the core Amharaareas of Shoa,Gojjam,and Begemder, Amharicspeakersin Ethiopiaareoftenbilingual, and probablymost have anotherEthiopian languageas their native language.There are recognizable regional varieties or dialects ofAmharic:of Shoa, Begemder,Gojjam,andMenz-Wello, butthedifferences among them are minor, mainly concerning pronun-ciation. Not just the political capital, Addis Ababais nowadaysthe focus of Ethiopianeconomic andsocial life, andits Amharichas become the prestige variety.There are Amharicmanuscriptsfrom the fourteenthcentury,and publication in Amharic has increased steadily since the be-ginning of this century.Therewas a flourishingof Amhariccre-ative writing in the immediate post-revolutionaryperiod after1975, and Amharic publications today include writings of allsorts:poetry,newspapers,literaryand news magazines, drama,novels, history, textbooks, etc. Anotherproductof the revolu-tion was widespread emigration of Ethiopians; Amharic lan-guage magazines are now published in the U.S. and Europetoserve these flourishingEthiopianpopulations.In Ethiopia, Amharic has spreadconsiderably into territoryearlier populated by speakers of other languages-in ancienttimes the southern Agaw language of north-centralEthiopia,and since the nineteenthcentury, anguagesof the south such asCushitic Sidamo and Omotic Kafa. As a result, Amharic hasacquired considerable lexical and grammaticalsimilarity withthese other Afroasiatic languages, but shows surprisinglylittleof the grammaticalregularizationand thoroughparadigm evel-ing often associated with extensive use as a second language-though, as in other Ethiopian Semitic languages, some Semiticfeatures are leveled, including broken plurals and gender dis-tinction in the pluralverb.Norhasconsiderableword-borrowinged to grammar hange.Amharic has efficient word-derivationalresources of its own,but can borrow words from GeCez with almost no need fornativization,a practicenowadays favoredby puristsfor the sat-isfaction of needs for technical, political, or other new vo-cabulary.Borrowings from Italian during the 1936-41 Italianoccupation did not at all penetratethe basic vocabulary,nor dowords from English, the principal source of borrowed wordsnowadays,perhapsbecause the root-and-patternmorphologicaltype makes the adaptationof Indo-europeanwords somewhatproblematic.(E.g.: derivedby Amharicsuffix,saraat-anndt un-employment'; an English loan: sogalist 'socialist'; and con-structedfrom GeCezwords, sara abyot 'counter-revolutionary'.)A national language academy was established in Ethiopiain1972, with the purpose largely of standardizingthe languageand, especially, of guiding the expansion of Amharictechnical

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