--- title: "Josef Tropper and Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee — Priess 2023" description: "This is a short review by Maija Priess (Aethiopica 25) of Classical Ethiopic: A Grammar of Geˁez , the English edition of Josef Tropper's German grammar…" authors: ["Maija Priess"] year: 2023 venue: "Aethiopica 25" source: "https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/aethiopica/article/view/1876" 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/priess-2023-josef-tropper-rebecca-hasselbach-andee/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/priess-2023-josef-tropper-rebecca-hasselbach-andee/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2023](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2023/page/4/) / Josef Tropper and Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee, Classical Ethiopic: A Grammar of Geˁez, Including Sample Texts and a Glossary # Josef Tropper and Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee, Classical Ethiopic: A Grammar of Geˁez, Including Sample Texts and a Glossary **Authors:** Maija Priess · **Year:** 2023 · **Venue:** Aethiopica 25 · **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.25.0.1876) · [PDF](https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/aethiopica/article/download/1876/1924) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4323074318) **Citations:** 0 citations (openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14) ## Summary This is a short review by Maija Priess (Aethiopica 25) of *Classical Ethiopic: A Grammar of Geˁez*, the English edition of Josef Tropper's German grammar *Altäthiopisch* (2002). The original had one weakness: it gave Gǝʿǝz only in Latin transliteration. Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee translated the book and also revised and enlarged it. Her main changes are: - Ethiopic script throughout, - a longer historical introduction, - terminology adjusted to English-language linguistics, - a bibliography covering twenty years of new research. The book covers the writing system, phonology, morphology, morphosyntax and syntax. Biblical example sentences are each given in three layers: script, transliteration and English. A reader of sample texts and a Gǝʿǝz–English glossary follow the grammar. The reviewer has taught the language since 2002 using the German edition. She judges the new version far more practical, suitable both for classes and for self-study, and the best available Gǝʿǝz grammar. She expects it to become the standard English reference. ## Key points - Bibliographic data: Languages of the Ancient Near East 10, Eisenbrauns, 2021, 440 pp., $69.95 / €109.00, ISBN 978-1-575-06841-1. - The source is Tropper's *Altäthiopisch* (Ugarit-Verlag, Elementa Linguarum Orientis 2, 2002), which used only Latin script. - The translator is Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Her translation stays close to the original's structure, with a few changes reflecting her own views and current Semitic scholarship. - Every example is aligned as Ethiopic script + transliteration + English. In the appendix reader, by contrast, each transliteration follows the whole text rather than running in parallel. - The glossary is sorted by Latin transliteration, with the Ethiopic form placed after each entry. ## Interesting ideas - Each example carries three aligned layers (native form, normalized romanization, translation), so a reader can check every step from surface to meaning. — For Mova (tokens): Debug output for each token could show surface form, normalized/lemma form and gloss side by side, making morphology decisions easy to audit. - The translator remapped the original's categories and terms onto the conventions familiar to the target readership, while keeping the substance intact. — For Mova (tree): The same discipline fits UD dialect conversion: keep an explicit, documented mapping layer when importing treebanks with differing label traditions, rather than silently relabeling. - The grammar builds strictly bottom-up: script, then sounds, then word forms, then morphosyntax, then syntax, with each layer resting on the previous one. — For Mova (learn): Training and evaluation curricula could follow the same order, so that a syntax error can be traced back to an upstream tokenization or morphology fault. - The glossary is keyed by a normalized transliteration, with the original script as secondary data, so lookup does not depend on mastering the script. — For Mova (world): Knowledge-base entries could be indexed by a canonical normalized key while storing surface variants as attributes, simplifying lookup across spellings. - The reviewer singles out that the reader puts transliteration after each text instead of in parallel, showing that how aids are positioned shapes how learners use them. — For Mova (answer): When testing reader modules on tales or school texts, keep any helper annotations separate from the main input, so the test measures real comprehension rather than reliance on the aid. *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{priess2023josef, title = {{Josef Tropper and Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee, Classical Ethiopic: A Grammar of Geˁez, Including Sample Texts and a Glossary}}, author = {Priess, Maija}, booktitle = {Aethiopica 25}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.15460/aethiopica.25.0.1876}, url = {https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.25.0.1876} } ``` - [← previous Jais and Jais-chat: Arabic-Centric Foundation and Instruction-Tuned Open Generative Large Language Models](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/sengupta-2023-jais-jais-chat-arabic-centric/) - [next → JudgeLM: Fine-tuned Large Language Models are Scalable Judges](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/zhu-2023-judgelm-fine-tuned-large-language/) - [↑ back to papers of 2023](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2023/page/4/)