This long article takes up the ongoing debate about the ancient Ge'ez language, notably whether it should be re-introduced into the school curriculum in Ethiopia. Ge'ez is, of course, the only language that preserves the complete texts of important ancient Jewish Old Testament pseudepigrapha (especially 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees). The author makes the case and provides some fascinating information on the history and current status of Ge'ez. From the conclusion:
While Geʿez no longer thrives as a mother tongue or a daily medium of conversation, its profound and continuing influence on education, religion, science, and culture undermines any simple declaration of death. The binary of living and dead language proves inadequate to capture Geʿez’s unique status. Geʿez exists in a post-vernacular space, intellectually active, culturally potent, and symbolically rich, even if it is not commonly spoken. Rather than pronounce Geʿez dead and deny its presence in emergent curricula, we might more accurately describe it as immortal, fixed in time, yet ever-present in the consciousness of Horn African civilization.For another recent defense of Ge'ez as more than a "dead language," see here. And for PaleoJudaica posts on Ge'ez as an ancient scriptural and onging liturgical language, run "Ethiopic Watch" through the search engine.This view acknowledges the language’s vital cultural, educational, and symbolic functions, as well as its re-emergence through digital technologies and modern pedagogical movements. The revival of other classical or endangered languages through early immersion shows that Geʿez’s future may depend less on historical fatalism and more on how we choose to teach, use, and value it. In a world where both humans and machines are once again engaging with Geʿez, perhaps the real question is not whether Geʿez is dead, but what kind of life we are willing to imagine for it, especially in the context of education.
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