---
title: "Reflections on Abu Rumi’s Amharic — Mulugetta 2012"
description: "The paper tests a common claim about Abu Rumi's Amharic Bible (Abba Abraham, d."
authors: ["Meley Mulugetta"]
year: 2012
venue: "Aethiopica 12"
source: "https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/aethiopica/article/view/98"
doi: "10.15460/aethiopica.12.1.98"
licence: "CC BY-SA (journal licence per DOAJ; Aethiopica)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/mulugetta-2012-reflections-abu-rumis-amharic-translation/"
---
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# Reflections on Abu Rumi’s Amharic Translation of the Book of Ruth

**Authors:** Meley Mulugetta · **Year:** 2012 · **Venue:** Aethiopica 12 · **Licence:** [CC BY-SA (journal licence per DOAJ; Aethiopica)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.12.1.98) · [PDF](https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/aethiopica/article/download/98/407) · [DOI 10.15460/aethiopica.12.1.98](https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.12.1.98) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2142342618)

**Citations:** 0 citations (openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The paper tests a common claim about Abu Rumi's Amharic Bible (Abba Abraham, d. 1819). The claim is that its Old Testament tracks the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) closely, often over the Greek and the GƼʞƼz versions. The author uses the Book of Ruth as a test case because it is short enough to support general conclusions. She compares selected verses and names across several versions: the Hebrew MT, the LXX, GƼʞƼz manuscripts from EMML, the Vulgate, Arabic versions and English Bibles.

Abu Rumi's close literalism does restore narrative details the GƼʞƼz had lost or softened, such as who kisses whom and whether God is blamed for Naomi's misery. However, his focus on literal wording and plain meaning makes him miss the story's craft: rhythm, accents and especially "inclusions," which are repeated words or phrases tying scenes together. Among the versions compared, his rendering of these paired inclusions is the least consistent.

This matters because later Amharic Bibles relied heavily on his text. Such translations also remain valuable for comparative syntax and the history of translation schools.

## Key points
- Abu Rumi worked with M. Asselin, French Vice Consul in Cairo. The British and Foreign Bible Society bought his text and published it complete in 1840. The PDF itself is dated Aethiopica 12 (2009), not 2012.
- In Ruth 1:14, the GƼʞƼz has Naomi kiss Orpah, whereas MT and LXX have Orpah return the kiss. Abu Rumi follows the Hebrew and so restores the two-way farewell kiss that closes the scene.
- In 1:13 and 1:20, the GƼʞƼz shifts blame away from God, for example by saying God's hand "has left me" or that Naomi is simply bitter. Abu Rumi keeps God as the cause, as in MT and LXX.
- Table 2 lists about ten inclusion pairs or sets (e.g., 1:9/3:1 "rest," 2:12/3:9 "wing," 2:1/3:11 "worthy"). Abu Rumi translates repeated phrases differently each time, e.g., 2:8 versus 2:21.
- Abu Rumi's apparent preference for the Hebrew could instead reflect Arabic sources he consulted. Settling this would need a full critical edition of the Arabic Bible.

## Interesting ideas
- A reciprocal gesture whose roles are swapped (A kisses B, later B kisses A) can mark both the opening and the closing of a scene. If the direction is lost, the scene structure breaks. — For Mova (world): Scene boundaries could be detected by finding a repeated event type whose agent and patient have swapped, and that link could be stored in the event order.
- A text can quietly change meaning by deleting the causer, e.g., moving from "God made me bitter" to "I am bitter." — For Mova (frames): Checks could flag when a causative frame loses its agent between paraphrases, so that blame and responsibility stay explicit in the frames.
- The paper measures consistency over repeated source phrases: a translation is scored on whether each paired occurrence gets the same rendering. — For Mova (back): The text → graph → text compressor could add an inclusion-consistency check, requiring the same graph node to come out in the same wording each time it recurs.
- Hebrew accents decide whether "at mealtime" in Ruth 2:14 attaches to "said" or to "come," and ignoring them changes the meaning. — For Mova (tree): Punctuation and prosody-like cues could be used as evidence for temporal-adjunct attachment, with such cases logged as known ambiguity sites in treebank evaluation.
- Agreement between one version and the MT may come from a shared intermediate source (Arabic) rather than direct dependence. — For Mova (learn): Silver data agreed by several witness parsers should be checked for shared ancestry, such as common training data, before agreement is counted as independent evidence.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

Fields: [Linguistics & languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/linguistics/)

## Cite

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{mulugetta2012reflections,
  title = {{Reflections on Abu Rumi’s Amharic Translation of the Book of Ruth}},
  author = {Mulugetta, Meley},
  booktitle = {Aethiopica 12},
  year = {2012},
  doi = {10.15460/aethiopica.12.1.98},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.12.1.98}
}
```

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## References

4 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. A R¨N , G USTAV , Evangelical Pioneers in Ethiopia, Stockholm, 1978. B ERLIN , A DELE , The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, Bloomington, IN, 1985. B ERTMAN , S TEPHEN , ߋSymmetrical Design in the Book of Ruthߌ = Journal of Biblical Literature 84, 1965, 165߃68. B RENNER , A THALYA , ߋNaomi and Ruthߌ= Vetus Testamentum 33, 1983, 385߃397. C AMPBELL , E DWARD , Ruth: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary. The Anchor Bible. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=A+R%C2%A8N+%2C+G+USTAV+%2C+Evangelical+Pioneers+in+Ethiopia%2C+Stockholm%2C+1978%2E+B+ERLIN+%2C+A+DELE+%2C+The+Dynamics+of+Biblical+Parallelism%2C+Bloomington%2C+IN%2C+1985%2E+B+ERTMAN+%2C+S+TEPHEN+%2C+%DF%8BSymmetrical+Design+in+the+Bo)
2. Garden City, 1975. D A B ASSANO , F RANCESCO , җлԟ֓ ӜԥӇ֔ ԊҢѢӅӒӺ֓ яѧк֓ ъխчտҧ֓ ѲԢяҧ֓ ԊҗѝӅ֓ Ӻяѧк֓ ъխчտҧ֓ Ѩџԝ֓ Ӻկџӗ֓ Ӻԅњҗ (BƼluy kidan. ZÃtÃsÃnaʝawà mƼslà mÃصa׷Ƽft qÃddÃmt zÃbƼrana wÃmƼslà mÃصa׷Ƽftà Sorya wÃصƼrʝ wÃʞarÃb, ߇The Old Testament, Compared with the Old Manuscripts and the Syriac, Greek and Arabic Books߈), 4 vols., AsmÃra 1915߃18 A.M. [1922/23߃25/26 A.D.] D ILLMANN , A UGUST , Catalogues Codicum MSS. Aethiopicorum qui in Museo Britannico asservantur, London, 1847. K NIBB , M ICHAEL A., Translating the Bible. The Ethiopic Version of the Old Testament. The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1995, Oxford, 1999. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Garden+City%2C+1975%2E+D+A+B+ASSANO+%2C+F+RANCESCO+%2C+%D2%97%D0%BB%D4%9F%D6%93+%D3%9C%D4%A5%D3%87%D6%94+%D4%8A%D2%A2%D1%A2%D3%85%D3%92%D3%BA%D6%93+%D1%8F%D1%A7%D0%BA%D6%93+%D1%8A%D5%AD%D1%87%D5%BF%D2%A7%D6%93+%D1%B2%D4%A2%D1%8F%D2%A7%D6%93+%D4%8A%D2%97%D1%9D%D3%85%D6%93+%D3%BA%D1%8F%D1%A7%D0%BA%D6%93+%D1%8A%D5%AD%D1%87%D5%BF%D2%A7%D6%93+%D1%A8%D1%9F%D4%9D%D6%93+%D3%BA%D5%AF%D1%9F%D3%97%D6%93+%D3%BA%D4%85%D1%9A%D2%97+%28B%C6%BCluy+kidan%2E+Z%C3%83t%C3%83s%C3%83na%CA%9Daw%C3%83+m%C6%BCsl%C3%83+m%C3%83%D8%B5a%D7%B7%C6%BCft+q%C3%83dd%C3%83mt+z%C3%83b%C6%BCrana+w%C3%83m%C6%BCsl%C3%83+m%C3%83%D8%B5a%D7%B7%C6%BCft%C3%83+Sorya)
3. Meley Mulugetta K UGEL , J AMES , The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History, London, 1981. L ESLAU , W OLF , Comparative Dictionary of Ge߇ez, Wiesbaden, 1987. M ELEY M ULUGETTA , ߋSome Notes on the Geʞez Translation of the Ma׷bÃrà Hawaryat version of the Book of Ruthߌ = LISSAN, Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, 20, 2006, 163߃172. M ESCHONNIC , H ENRI , ߋTranslating Biblical Rhythmߌ = Modern Language Studies 15, 1985, 143߃156. N IELSEN , K IRSTEN , ߋLe choix contre le droit dans le livre de Ruth: De Faire de battage au tribunalߌ = Vetus Testamentum 35, 1985, 201߃12. R AUBER , D ONALD F., ߋLiterary Values in the Bible: The Book of Ruthߌ = Journal of Biblical Literature 89, 1970, 27߃37. U LLENDORFF , E DWARD , Ethiopia and the Bible, Oxford, 1968. W RIGHT , W ILLIAM , Catalogue of Ethiopic Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1877. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Meley+Mulugetta+K+UGEL+%2C+J+AMES+%2C+The+Idea+of+Biblical+Poetry%3A+Parallelism+and+Its+History%2C+London%2C+1981%2E+L+ESLAU+%2C+W+OLF+%2C+Comparative+Dictionary+of+Ge%DF%87ez%2C+Wiesbaden%2C+1987%2E+M+ELEY+M+ULUGETTA+%2C+%DF%8BSome+)
4. Manuscripts consulted from the EMML EMML 39, 191, 199, 361, 488, 510, 1163, 1839, 1842, 1888, 1929, 2098, 2388, 2436, 2532, 4434, 4437, 4752 EMML = A Catalogue of Ethiopian Manuscripts microfilmed for the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, Addis Ababa, and for the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, Collegeville. Volumes I߃III (1975, 1976, 1978) were compiled by W ILLIAM F. M ACOMBER , volume IV (1979) by G ETATCHEW H AILE , volumes V߃VII (1981, 1982, 1983) by G ETATCHEW H AILE and W ILLIAM F. M ACOMBER , volumes VIII߃X (1985, 1987, 1993) by G ETATCHEW H AILE . [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Manuscripts+consulted+from+the+EMML+EMML+39%2C+191%2C+199%2C+361%2C+488%2C+510%2C+1163%2C+1839%2C+1842%2C+1888%2C+1929%2C+2098%2C+2388%2C+2436%2C+2532%2C+4434%2C+4437%2C+4752+EMML+%3D+A+Catalogue+of+Ethiopian+Manuscripts+microfilmed+for)