Geez

Geez (pron. Gaze), the old Semitic language of Abyssinia, of which Tigre is the purest modern representative. It has long ceased to be spoken; but, like old Armenian and old Slavonic, it is still studied as the liturgical language of the Abyssinian Christians. Geez belongs to the Himyaritic or South Arabic division of the Semitic family, and preserves many archaic features of the organic Semitic tongue, which have been lost in the other members of the group. Thus of the fifteen primitive forms of the Semitic verb it retains no less than thirteen - that is, far more than does Arabic or any of the other cognate tongues. It is written in a peculiar syllabic alphabet running from left to right, and derived from the original writing system from which have sprung all the Semitic alphabets except the Assyrian cuneiforms. The Geez version of the Bible dates apparently from the 4th century, when Christianity was introduced into the Abyssinian highlands. Its literature also comprises numerous translations of Jewish, Greek, Christian and Arabic works. [Himyaritic, Semitic Languages.]