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Why did Old Ethiopic cease to be a spoken language?
P. 53–69.
It is generally acknowledged that Old Ethiopic (Gəʕz) was a spoken language in the Aksumite kingdom, and that it enjoyed high status both politically and culturally. Likewise, it is generally acknowledged that Old Ethiopic ceased to be a spoken language before the Solomonic dynasty came to power. However, both the circumstances that led to its death as a vernacular and even approximate date of this event remain obscure. The present paper is an attempt to approach both questions, offering some reflections on the sociolinguistic factors which could have brought about at first, the rise of Old Ethiopic and later, its decline as a spoken language.
In book
Napoli: UniorPress, 2026.