Ethiopians Speak: Studies in Cultural Background, Chaha-Ennemor (Part V)
Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1983. First edition. Hardcover. 4to. ix,[3],243,[1]pp. Gold-stamped maroon cloth with gold lettering on spine. "This is the fifth volume in the series Ethiopians Speak: Studies in Cultural Background. As stated in the introduction of the first volume, the purpose of the series is twofold: first, to present to the social scientist in general, and to the student in things Ethiopic in particular, a description of the various aspects of everyday life within the various ethnic groups of Ethiopia; and second, at the same time to furnish the Ethiopian linguist with a collection of texts in languages for which we have no writings." Illustrated with two b/w maps. Text in English and Chaha Ethiopian. Volume 16 of "Äthiopistische Forschungen." Very minor scuffing and staining on binding. Tight copy in very good to near fine condition. "From the last library of Wolf Leslau, no bookplate present.'. vg. Item #49899
ISBN: 3515039651
From the collection of Wolf Leslau. Wolf Leslau was undoubtedly the greatest Semiticist linguist of the past century, many would even say of all time. He was born in Czestochowa, Poland, on November 14, 1906, and died in Fullerton, California, on November 18, 2006. The centenarian was working almost up to his final day on a descriptive grammar of the Ethio-Semitic language Gogot. As with so much of his work, his grammars were based on material he had collected doing fieldwork, in this particular case many decades before. He published more than fifty volumes and more than two hundred articles in a variety of international journals over a long and distinguished career of seventy-plus years, and he is known as a most prodigious contributor to Ethiopian linguistics (including three enormous projects of particular importance, Leslau 1979, 1987, 1995) as well as an important contributor to Semitic comparative and historical lexicography, and folklore and oral literature. His publications (written chiefly in English, but also in French, Yiddish, and Hebrew) ranged across descriptive grammar, comparative grammar, lexicography, grammatical/phonological and lexical reconstruction, etymology, language classification, borrowing, anthropological and cultural linguistic topics (e.g. folk tales, argots, riddles, songs, proverbs, taboos), translation, bibliography, reviews, and even recordings of Ethiopian traditional music.
Price: $65.00