Eighteen months ago, purely for fun, I made my first attempt at seeing whether AI could produce an English translation of a text in Ethiopic, the otherwise untranslated Homily of Yohannan, bishop of Axum, on Abba Garima, printed by Rossini. It could not. A week or so back, I tried again and got a load of rather decent looking results, and I’ve been working on this since. The output from DeepSeek aligned quite well with Rossini’s summary
Last week I accidentally learned that there was a French translation by Gerard Colin.[1] I got hold of that on Friday, and I have compared the first two paragraphs with the AI-generated output from the Ge`ez text.
The results are not positive. The DeepSeek output is really not good enough. Here’s Rossini’s text, followed by Colin’s French. I’ve put the full-stops in red. Ge`ez uses word separators, which I have kept.
Ecoutez et méditez, mes frères bien-aimés, ce que je vais vous raconter. J’ai vu une femme, stérile, que l’on fustigeait et injuriait ainsi que Notre Dame Marie, en parlant à propos du Fils de celle-ci, le Christ. « Il n’est pas né d’une femme », disaient ceux qui ne croyaient pas au Christ. Je me mis à courir et entrepris d’embrasser les pieds de cette femme en disant : « Oui, par cette porte est sorti le roi des deux et de la terre ! » Quand j’eus parlé ainsi, les trombes de l’Esprit Saint descendirent sur moi.
A quick run of Google Translate on Colin gives this:
Listen and meditate, my beloved brothers, on what I am about to tell you. I saw a barren woman being flogged and insulted, along with Our Lady Mary, speaking of her Son, Christ. “He was not born of woman,” said those who did not believe in Christ. I ran and began to embrace the woman’s feet, saying, “Yes, through this gate has come out the king of heaven and of the earth!” When I had spoken these words, the cloudbursts of the Holy Spirit descended upon me.
Now here’s the Deepseek output. I’ve highlighted important differences:
Hear and understand, O my beloved brethren, what I declare to you. I saw a woman while they were stoning her and mocking her, and also mocking our Lady Mary, saying concerning her Son Christ, ‘He was not born of a woman.’ These said, ‘We do not believe in Christ.’ And I stood trembling and took refuge beneath the feet of that woman as she said, ‘Yes, by this decree, the King of Heaven and Earth shall come forth.’ And when she spoke thus, the Holy Spirit descended upon me fourteenfold.
These are not small differences. They obscure what the text is actually saying. And as ever with AI, the output is not stable. That was the output a week ago. Today the same text produced this:
And he said: Listen and understand, O my beloved brothers, what I will tell you. I saw a woman being accused of adultery, and while they were judging her, they also judged our Lady Mary, saying concerning her Son, Christ: “He was not born of a woman’s womb.” Those who say this do not believe in Christ. And as I stood there, I became angry and struck the ground beneath that woman’s feet while she was saying, “Yes, by this argument, let the King of Heaven and Earth come forth!” And when she spoke thus, the Holy Spirit descended upon me.
These are not small differences either. I did venture to ask DeepSeek for details, and the grammar and meaning of individual words. This output also varied uncomfortably. Which basically means that it is not useful.
In conclusion, AI is still not good enough to translate Ge`ez.
Perhaps I shall come back to this in a year, and see how things look then.
I have an AI output with an English translation of the Ge`ez – Classical Ethiopian – text of the 15th century “Life” of Abba Garima by Yohannan. It ‘feels’ more or less right. But I don’t know any Ethiopian, and I cannot even read the language, so it’s impossible to say.
Today I scanned the Italian introduction, summary, and notes by Carlo Conti Rossini, the editor of the “Life”. I’ve run that through Google Translate, and so I have enough to write some words about the text. The summary of the “Life” (a “gadl” in Ethiopic) seems to agree with the AI output, which is encouraging.
But of course Rossini was writing in the 1890s, which is a very long time ago. It came to me that there must have been work on this text since then. But where might I find this? A google search gives little. Knowing nothing about Ethiopian studies, I have spent some time today looking for bibliography. This is what I found, rightly or wrongly.
Jon Abbink, “Ethiopian Society and History: A Bibliography of Ethiopian Studies, 1957-1990”, Leiden: African Studies Centre (1990). Online here.
Jon Abbink, “Eritreo-Ethiopian studies in society and history:1960-1995”. Leiden: African Studies Centre (2022). Online here.
Thank heavens for the Leiden African Studies Centre! Abbink writes:
The period before 1957 is relatively well covered in general bibliographies like the ones by R. Jones (see below item 39), H.W. Lockot (German language publications; item 48), and now, Paulos Milkias, item.58.
I.e.
39. Jones, R.
1958 Ethiopia. In: Africa Bibliography Series, North East Africa, General/Ethnography/Sociology/Linguistics, pp. 19-39.
London: International African Institute.
48. Lockot, H. W.
1982 Bibliographia Aethiopica. Die äthiopienkundliche Literatur des deutschsprachigen Raums.
Wiesbaden: Steiner, 441 p.
58. Paulos Milkias
1989 Ethiopia: a Comprehensive Bibliography.
Boston: O.K. Hall, 710 p
These I have not consulted. Of course our interest is hagiographical literature.
Section 23 of Abbink is “Christian and Hagiographical Literature”, on p.281. From this I learned of the existence of this:
G.W.B. Huntingford, “Saints of Mediaeval Ethiopia”, in: Abba Salama 10 (1979) p.257-341. “Abba Salama” turns out to be “Abba Salama: A Review of the Association of Ethio-Hellenic Studies”. It seems to be inaccessible, however. But there are many references to it in relevant sources, such as:
Steven Kaplan, “Hagiographies and the History of Medieval Ethiopia”, in: History in Africa 8 (1981), pp. 107-123. (JSTOR) Summary, references here. This looks useful.
G. Lusini, “A companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea”, in: S. Kelly, A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea, Brill (2020), pp.194-216. This seems tremendously useful, and a PDF copy has strayed online here.
From the last I learned of the existence of a French translation of the “Life” of Abba Garima!
Gérard Colin, Saints Fondateurs du Christianisme Éthiopien: Frumentius, Garimā, Takla-Hāymānot, Ēwostātēwos, Paris: Les Belles Lettres (2017), pp.6-37. This is modestly priced – 22 euros – unusually.
This, of course, I must consult if possible. A library near me has a copy, so I have spent some time jumping through hoops in order to regain access to the premises. The book is off-site, apparently, so I may have to wait a couple of days to set eyes on it.
Update April 16, 2025.
Another extremely useful item is the Encyclopedia Aethiopica. This is edited in 5 volumes by Siegbert Uhlig, and is up-to-date. The scope of the work means that it is fairly basic, but that is still far more than we get from anywhere else.
In Hamburg there is a project to create a Clavis – a numbered list – of Ethiopian literature. This is being led by Alessandro Bausi, and the TraCES project page is here. The beta version of the Clavis is actually offline at the moment however. A collection of digital versions of Ethiopic texts is also being created.
Also in Hamburg Dr Aaron Butts has got funding for some serious work on the Nine Saints. The “BeInf – Beyond Influence” project page is here.
I now have a corrected electronic text of the homily of Yohanan, bishop of Axum, in honour of St Garima. I’ve numbered the paragraphs as an aid to myself, since I cannot even read the Ethiopian alphabet. It probably needs work. But here it is:
Today I started plugging paragraphs into DeepSeek. I also tried asking it to interleave the sentences, Ethiopic, then English. This did work, although curiously DeepSeek had trouble with the Ethiopic alphabet.
The first six chapters went fairly well. Here they are:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. I have placed my trust in Him and believed in Him forever and ever. Amen.
1. The Homily delivered by Saint John, Bishop and Archbishop of Aksum, concerning the greatness and glory of Saint Isaac. And he said: Listen and understand, O my beloved brothers, what I will tell you. I saw a woman being mocked by a crowd, and as they were laughing at her and at our Lady Mary, they were saying concerning her Son, Christ: “He was not born of a woman; His birth is impossible.” These people did not believe in Christ. And as I stood there, I grew angry and stomped my foot upon the ground where that woman was standing while she spoke. And behold, at that very moment, the King of Heaven and Earth came forth. And when she spoke thus, the Holy Spirit descended upon me.
2. I tell you, I saw a man and a woman who came to me with wealth that my Lord had given me for the nourishment of your souls, the greatness and struggle of this righteous man. There was a man whose name was Mesfiyanos, king of Rome, and his wife’s name was Kefngya. For she was barren and childless, having nothing. And the two of them lived grieving for twelve years. These were righteous people who gave alms to the poor and needy and to churches. One day she went to offer sacrifice and entered the church where there were images of Peter and Paul and our Lady Mary. She stood between the three images and prayed before Mary, saying: “Give me a son who will glorify you and glorify your Son, and if he does not glorify your Son, let my womb be cursed.” And that image responded as if saying “Oh!” She offered her sacrifice and returned home. From that time she conceived and bore a son and gave thanks to God. They named him Isaac; Isaac, the joy of his mother, the splendor of his father. When he was forty days old, they took him to the church and baptized him according to Christian tradition. All the people gathered in the church of Peter and Paul. The chief bishop stood before the Ark of the Covenant and blessed him, saying: “May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who blessed our holy forefathers bless you.” When the chief bishop blessed the child, a great light shone upon him, bright as the sun, moon, and stars. All who saw this marveled and glorified God, then offered sacrifices in their churches. The queen returned home with her child, and they celebrated a feast with great joy. When he turned twelve years old, they brought him to a teacher who instructed him in the Law, the Prophets, the Apostolic books, and their commentaries. They ordained him as a deacon. He further learned church canons, admonitions, plants, and animals. His parents consulted one another, saying: “Let us arrange a marriage for our son while we still live, that we may rejoice in his offspring.” As they were making these plans, an angel of God appeared to Mesfiyanos in a dream saying: “Many souls perish—will you not save them? A great church shall be built through him.” The king awoke and went to his wife, saying: “Last night an angel of God came to me and told me that through him miracles and wonders shall be performed.” The angel said to the queen: “I have come to command you to build and establish a church, that you may rejoice in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
3. When his father died, the nobles and dignitaries of Rome gathered and mourned for Isaac as he wept bitter tears. They enthroned him in the royal seat, and he reigned for seven years. During his days there was joy and peace. Afterwards, Saint Pantaleon came to him and said: “O my beloved Isaac, your earthly kingdom is temporary, but the kingdom of heaven is everlasting. The earthly kingdom will perish and pass away, but the heavenly kingdom will not pass away. Have you not heard what our Lord said in the Gospel: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’? Or what Paul said about this world: ‘It is passing away, and those who weep should live as though they were not weeping, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who use the world as though they were not using it, for the form of this world is passing away’? My son Isaac, do not neglect the love of God.”
When the message arrived, Isaac saw it and wept bitterly. He rose at night and prayed, saying: “O my Lord Jesus Christ, I beg and implore You to hear my prayer and grant the request of Your servant Isaac. Show me the straight path that I should walk.” He rose at night from his chamber and went to a secret place outside the palace, departing by night. The angel Gabriel appeared to him, prepared a chariot and canopy for him with shining wings, and brought him from Rome to Aksum in ninety days, traveling by night on the back of an eagle, arriving at the third hour.
4. When the messengers of Father Pantaleon arrived after ten months and four days, they told the man of God, who marveled and trembled, saying: “O my son Isaac, have you not heard what David the prophet said: ‘Your works and my soul will be satisfied when I awake with Your likeness’? What I have done secretly, do not hide from me under the earth. What I have seen with your eyes, write it all in your book. Listen, my son, to the greatness of God who has called us from all things, just as He called you under the wing of the eagle.” As they spoke of God’s greatness, they remained until daybreak.
5. Saint Isaac said to Father Pantaleon: “Father, clothe me in the monastic garb.” Father Pantaleon replied: “Do you know, my son, what the monastic garb means?” Saint Isaac answered: “Yes, I know, father. Have you not heard what our Lord said in the Gospel: ‘What is exalted among men is an abomination before God’? As Paul said: ‘What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? Neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.’ I desire to be bound to Christ and to be bound tightly.”
When Father Pantaleon heard these words from Saint Isaac’s mouth, he prostrated himself and blessed God, saying to Isaac: “May God strengthen you in keeping His commandments.” Then he took the monastic garb and clothed him, blessing him with these words: “May our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed Anthony and placed upon his head the crown of monasticism, sanctify your garb. May God who blessed Father Macarius and Father Synoda bless your garb. May He who gave Elijah’s mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven and brought down the cloak for him—and with that cloak Elisha struck the waters and crossed over, raised the dead, and cleansed lepers—likewise sanctify your garb. May God who sanctified the priesthood of Melchizedek sanctify your priesthood.” They remained together for one year.
6. When the other saints heard that Saint Isaac had renounced the kingdom and embraced monastic life, they came to him. Among them were Abba Likanos from Qusṭinṭinya (Constantinople), Abba Yima’ata from Qosya, Abba Ṣəḥma from Antioch, Abba Guba from Cilicia, Abba Afṣe from Isya, Abba Maṭa‘ from Rome, and Abba ‘Oṣe from Caesarea. When the saints gathered, they met with Abba Pantaleon and Saint Isaac, and they were united in spiritual love. They lived together in one house, devoted to prayer. Among them, there was no one who sought personal gain, nor anyone who desired material possessions or the pleasures of the world. They remained for a period of one year.
The first 5 chapters are from DeepSeek. I then asked it to do chapter 6, and the monstrously long chapter 7. The results were weird, and then DeepSeek crashed. I then tried ChatGPT on chapter 6, which is what you have above. The DeepSeek version was about the same.
The ChatGPT version of chapter 7 was quite different in every way from that produced by DeepSeek. Here’s DeepSeek, the opening bits:
7. While they lived in this way, a governor of Aksum came to them and said: “There is a great beast, a king of the land of Ethiopia, to whom all the nobles bow down and offer gifts. They bring him a beautiful maiden of good appearance, and they perform sacrifices and offerings. When she is brought before this beast, he defiles her and then devours her. This beast has reigned in this manner for fifteen years.”
This beast was 170 cubits long and 4 cubits wide, with one cubit for its tail. Its eyes were like fiery coals, and the pupils of its eyes were like black pots. Its entire body was like a serpent and a dragon. When it ate, it would consume 17 oxen, and they would bring before it 10 sheep, 10 goats, 1000 chickens, 100 lambs, and countless birds. Upon its head were horns measuring three cubits. When it moved, its voice could be heard from a distance of eighty days’ journey.
When the brothers heard this, they marveled and were astonished. They trembled and said to the governor: “Do you truly speak the truth?” He replied: “Yes, truly. If you do not believe me, let one of you come and see.” Father Pantaleon said to Saint Isaac: “My son, what shall we do?” Saint Isaac replied: “Let my brother Oz go and observe this beast. If it is as he says, then you too must rise and pray.” …
Here’s ChatGPT:
7. And when they came and reached him, a certain nobleman from Aksum spoke to them and said: “Hail, great king, the ruler of the nation of Ethiopia!” And they all bowed before him, the nobles, and presented to him the honorable and righteous virgin of the Lord. And they performed hymns and praises, and she came before him, the king, and prostrated herself. And she continued to remain pure. And the king was astonished.
And they stayed there for fifteen years. And the king stood in honor of her for one hundred and eighty days. And he prepared four feasts in her honor. And one of these feasts was the greatest. And his eyes shone like flames of fire, and his pupils were as bright as polished metal. His appearance was as dazzling as the sun and lightning. And when he spoke, seventeen scribes recorded his words. And they made a proclamation across the land.
There were ten thousand warriors, and one hundred thousand men armed with shields and spears. And they gathered before him in great numbers. And his voice was heard from afar, resounding like thunder. And the land trembled at his voice. And his presence was mighty, and all the nobles fell before him.
The DeepSeek text is at least plausible. The ChatGPT is not.
What I will try doing is getting each to translate it, sentence by sentence, interleaved with the Ethiopic. I’ll see what that does.
I’m working away on this Ethiopian homily of John, bishop of Axum, on St. Garima. It was printed in 1898 by C. Conti Rossini,[1] but without translation.
Well, I don’t know any Ethiopian at all, and I don’t even know the alphabet. There are 31 consonants, each of which has seven variants, I gather.
But I knew that it was possible to get Google to turn images into electronic text, and a couple of experiments with ChatGPT and DeepSeek quickly showed that the resulting output file could be understood by AI and produce English text.
So I need to get a decent electronic text.
My first step was to take the PDF, extract the pages with the Ethiopian text on them, and pull them into Finereader. Finereader does NOT support Amharic, but it has useful image editing tools. I trimmed the 24 pages down to the bare text – no footnotes, no headings, and exported them as images to a directory.
I then bundled these images up into a PDF using my incredibly elderly Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.0. I then went into Google Drive and uploaded the PDF. Then I right-clicked on it in Google Drive, and opened it in Google Docs. This caused Google to OCR it, thereby creating an electronic text. I then downloaded this in Word format.
I’ve checked the results into a local Git repository – so that I can always go back if I screw up the file.
And now, page by page, I am going through what Google has given me, removing obvious crud and irrelevant line breaks. It seems to insert a small amount of garbage between pages.
Wish me luck!
There are other free Amharic OCR websites online, and these seem to do a reasonable job too. But I’ve stuck so far with the Google Docs output.
Incidentally DeepSeek offered the opinion that the text is not in Amharic, as I had expected, but in Ge`ez, Classical Ethiopian. Luckily it doesn’t care.
[1]C. Conti Rossini, “L’omilia di Yohannes vescovo di Aksum in onore di Garima,” Actes du Congrès International des Orientalistes, Section Sémitique (Paris, 1898).Online via here.↩
Back in August 2023, I found that it was possible to scan in some of an Ethiopian text, part of the Life of Saint Garima. Unfortunately the results from machine translation were disappointing. ChatGPT was no better.
This evening I was writing my last post, and remembered these efforts. So I pasted those chunks of text into ChatGPT. Here’s the first:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God above all, I have renounced everything and believed in Him until the end of the world. Amen.
The sermon delivered by Saint John, the Bishop of Aksum, concerning the greatness and honor of Saint Isaac:
He said, “Listen and understand, my beloved ones, what I will tell you. I saw a woman who was suffering greatly, trembling and in distress. And she called upon Our Lady Mary, saying: ‘For the sake of the Son, Christ, this woman is not yet born.’ They said to her, ‘Whoever does not believe in Christ and remains doubtful, they shall be humbled and brought low under her feet.’
Then, at that moment, the King of Heaven and Earth came forth. And she said, ‘The one who is greater than Moses shall come.’
Plausible. Here’s the second chunk:
And it happened on one night that a book was opened, read, and written down. And he arose for prayer in the church. And the angels wrote for him the Gospel at the fourth hour and interpreted it for him. And the angels of God descended and stood before him, and our Lord Christ comforted him. And his message was heard throughout all the land. His prayer and blessing remained with us.
Scriptorium Press is a new publisher, and offers a growing series of English translations of hagiographical texts. Most of these are from the Greek. All of them seem intended for use by the educated general reader with an interest in the lives of the saints.
An interesting volume is their Saints of Ethiopia (140 pages, C$16). ISBN 9798300901172. This is an anthology of texts which throw light upon the origins of the Ethiopian church. This is a welcome attempt to make this little-known area of orthodox life more accessible.
Not everything in it is newly translated. The editors do not seem to know Ge`ez, and so they have done their best with whatever they could translate.
The volume contains translations of the following texts, which are translated from the following sources.
On the Captivity of Frumentius (from Rufinus, Church History, book 1, c. 9; PL 21: 478-480)
The Life of Saint Moses the Ethiopian (from Palladius, The Lausiac History, c. 22; PG34:1063-70)
The Sayings of Abba Moses (from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers/Apophthegmata Patrum – Alphabetical Collection; PG 65:281-9)
The Life of Saint Pantaleon the Recluse (CSCO 26, Scriptores Aethiopici 17, 39-56)
The Martyrdom of Saint Arethas (in 9 chapters; BHG 166-166b; Anecdota Graeca 5 , Paris (1883), p.1-62.)
The Life of Saint Jared the Melodist (CSCO 26, 3-21).
The Cannibal of Kemer.
The first of these tells the story of how Christianity came to Ethiopia, and is therefore an excellent introduction to the rest. The next two, about Moses the Black, relate to life in Egypt, but are probably an inevitable inclusion.
The remaining texts will be less familiar. The Life of Saint Pantaleon is a 15th century Ge`ez text, for which a reader must otherwise consult the modern Latin translation of Rossini.
The Martyrdom of Saint Arethas and his companions – the martyrs of Najran, ca. 523 AD – is a Greek text. It records the war of the Christian Ethiopians against the Jewish Himiyarite king responsible. It makes use of earlier texts extant in Syriac, and makes a very welcome addition to the literature for this period.
The Life of Saint Jared (or Yared) the Melodist is a Ge`ez text of unknown date – the saint is 6th century -, but considerable length. It is a very useful thing to have. The editors have perforce abbreviated it, and they have included E. Wallis Budge’s translation of the corresponding portion of the Ethiopian Synaxarion. This interesting figure seems to have begun the musical tradition of the Ethiopian church, and created a system of musical notation.
The Cannibal of Kemer is an extract from the Book of the Miracles of Our Lady Mary. This is an Ethiopian translation of an 11th century Coptic text. The version given here is that of Budge, somewhat modernised, rather than a new translation.
The translation style is perfectly good and clear. It is sometimes a little stiff – “Jared sojourned in Aksum” is perhaps not a phrase found in current use – but probably from following the text particularly closely. Anybody who has had to work with dictionaries will know that the need for an exact equivalent often has this effect, where an older English had a word, but modern English does not. It’s probably right to stick with the older word.
For some of the texts, the footnotes are extensive, and very useful to the general reader. Few of us will be familiar with any of the context, after all. These are admirably done, identifying unfamiliar people and places, and referring to other texts. For others the notes are fewer – the Life of Pantaleon is much more annotated than the Life ofJared, for instance. But I do not think this will trouble the reader.
Something that is missing in the book is running titles. This is consistent with the style of the series, but in an anthology, it makes it harder to find particular texts. I suspect that copies of the book will get corners folded down, or sprout postits, at the start of each text.
The 23 page introduction assumes no knowledge of the origins of the Ethiopian church, and therefore stands as a useful primer for newcomers. The statements made are all carefully referenced, and so, in a short space, it gives a vast amount of useful information.
As in other volumes, the short bibliography is at the back. At the front there are two nice and very necessary maps of the region, and of the location of important Ethiopian monasteries.
All in all this volume is a success. It gives us texts in English that we did not have before. It collects useful material. May it sell well and bring knowledge of Ethiopia to many.
In my last post I found that it was possible to turn a PDF full of images of Amharic text into recognised electronic text using Google Drive, and then get some translation of the results into English using Google Translate.
There were some extremely interesting comments made on the post, which I have been reading. I have also prepared a PDF of the whole text of the Life of Garima by Yohannes, and run that through the Google Drive process.
Where we started was in trying to read a passage of this text, in which – supposedly – God stopped the sun so that St Garima could copy the bible in one day. The summary of the work given by Rossini (instead of a proper translation, drat him), indicates that this was on lines 356-60 of his text, which turns out to be the last line of p.161 and the first three of p.162. Here they are:
The output from the OCR is good, but you still have to compare the characters carefully. Errors can often be picked up just by dumping the raw scan output into Google Translate, which shows things like numerals.
Here we have a character that is plainly wrong, and coming out as a numeral “4”. It looks like an “o” with a hat and two dots under. The two dots under are legs in another copy of Rossini.
I’m guessing that it’s a “ge” character, from looking at the Wikipedia article, but I can’t be sure. The script isn’t an alphabet, but a syllabary, based on syllables. Each character is a consonant followed by a vowel, which makes for a lot more characters. There’s a table of the characters on the Wikipedia article, consonants down the left, vowels across the top. I’ve not really looked at this.
The Google translate output is also interesting because of the choice of “detected language” – Tigrayan, rather than Amharic. If you force it to Amharic, you get a lot less meaning.
One awkward part of using Google Drive to do the OCR is that it doesn’t preserve the line breaks. That makes comparing the lines more awkward. So you have to manually do this:
The Wikipedia article mentioned earlier gave me a list of punctuation marks. There are two sorts of punctuation visible in here. The colon mark is actually word division, which means that some words above go over two lines. I’ve chosen not to split words above. The double colon mark “::” is the full stop. Interestingly Google Translate gives different results if you remove the spaces!
Going through the electronic text, removing spaces, I notice that sometimes the word-separator isn’t detected by the OCR. So I added that in. Sometimes it put a Roman colon instead, so I replaced that. Finally I split on sentence:
But this still is not good enough to do much with. If we didn’t have an idea what the text said, this would not tell us.
All this fiddling about would certainly get to into contact with the language, and start you on a journey to learning it. But it’s not good enough a translation for other purposes, although intriguing.
One suggestion that was made in the comments to the last article was that ChatGPT gave better results. The output quoted was indeed produced, and was very smooth and seemed to be a series of liturgical prayers. But… I don’t think that this is actually the content. These AI tools are really only an improved version of the text prediction tools you get on messaging on a mobile phone. So it was pumping out garbage.
Anyway I tried it on this passage, and it crashed GPT very effectively! At the moment I can’t get any reply of any sort, not even to “hello”.
I don’t think that I will do more here. Clearly the technology is almost, but not quite good enough to be useful.
In my last post I mentioned how the Life of St Garima in Ethiopian was printed by Rossini, but without a translation. In fact it has never been translated into any modern language, to my knowledge. I don’t know any Ethiopian, and I doubt that I ever will.
But we live in an age of wonders, when it comes to unfamiliar languages.
So… is it possible to work with Ethiopian language editions, even if you know no Ethiopian? What about Google Translate? Ethiopian is in this heavy unfamiliar script. Is there OCR for this? If you can scan Rossini’s edition, can you pop it into Google Translate and get the English?
There are two sorts of Ethiopian out there, I know. There is Ge`ez, or classical Ethiopian; and there is Amharic, the modern dialect. Rossini printed his text from a 19th century manuscript. So it seems likely that this is in Amharic.
A quick Google confirmed; Google Translate knows Amharic! A bit of googling found me an Amharic news website online, here. I’m using Chrome, so all I had to do was right-click anywhere and select “Translate to English” and the whole website was rendered into some sort of English. And… it worked!! Yay me! It’s obviously not 100%, but it’s way better than 0%!
So what about OCR? I was sad to see that Abbyy Finereader apparently doesn’t support Amharic. That’s a blow. It was developed originally to handle Cyrillic, so it certainly has the capability. But it’s not offered. Drat.
A bit of googling brought me to a dubious-looking website here, claiming to offer a selection of tools which could do Amharic OCR. The prose felt a bit machine-generated, so I worried that it was bunk, or worse, a malicious site. But the first option was… Google Drive.
I never knew this, but seems that, if you upload a PDF containing an image of text, and then open it in Drive as a Google Docs document, it OCR’s the content.
Well, I thought, let’s give it a try. So I extracted the first page of Rossini’s edition, using Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 – no flashy latest-edition stuff going on here! Here’s a pic:
Then I uploaded it, and opened as a Google document. And … it just treated the Amharic as an image. Dang! But I noticed that it did indeed OCR the Italian at the top of the page!
This is supposed to work. So I thought maybe I should work over the image a bit. I imported the one-page PDF into Abbyy Finereader 15, and chopped off the Italian at the top, and the critical apparatus at the bottom. I then used the image editor in Finereader to “whiten the background”. This can be flaky, but this time it worked fine, and I got a pure white background. And I got this:
(I’ve just seen the marginal notes, which I need to chop off as well, so I’ll have to go round the loop again)
I exported the image as a PNG, and I used Acrobat again to create a PDF from the image. Then I uploaded the new PDF to Google Drive, and opened it as a Google Docs document. And… it worked! Sort of…
That’s… rather astonishing. No idea what all that is, but it looks sort of right. Let’s bear in mind that Rossini printed his edition in 1897. This is not a modern typeface. So this is rather good.
Next step was to paste it into Google Translate. It set it to auto-detect the language, and pasted in the first bit. And… it worked. In fact it gave a really useful transcription into Roman letters as well, which makes it a LOT easier to manipulate the text.
OK, I’m cheating slightly. The first time I uploaded, the translation ended at “Spirit”. But this is a Google Translate bug – it sometimes omits the remainder of a sentence. If you split the text with a line feed, you often get the rest. And that’s what I did. I worked out by experiment where I needed to be, and then I got the above.
I don’t quite believe the translation of the second sentence either. I suspect I need to play with this a bit to work out what each word is.
I notice all those colons between every word. It might help if I actually looked up the script online!
But I think you’ll agree that this is quite marvellous – I, who know absolutely nothing about the language, am getting something useful out!
Here’s an interesting one, which I came across today. There is an early set of gospels in Ethiopia, at the Abuna Garima monastery in Ethiopia’s Tigrai Highlands. An article in the Independent 6 July 2010 by Jerome Taylor tells us:
The monks have their own legend about how the gospels came into their possession. They believe they were written by Abba Garima, a Byzantine royal who arrived in what was then the kingdom of Axum in 494 and went on to found the monastery. According to the monks, Abba Garima finished his exquisite work in a single day because God stopped the sun from setting while he worked.
This claim is repeated in many places, often based on Wikipedia’s wording, which references the Independent article:
According to tradition, Abba Garima wrote and illustrated the complete Gospels in a single day: God stopped the sun from setting until the Saint completed his work.
“Tradition” is a weasel word. We have no traditions, not in the modern age, handed down from father to son orally. What we have are books. So whenever we see “tradition” mentioned, we need to ask what the literary source is.
Fortunately information is not far to seek. In Judith McKenzie and Francis Watson, The Garima Gospels: Early Illuminated Gospel Books from Ethiopia, Oxford (2016), (preview here), we find the following statement, p. ix, n.25:
23 There is a tradition that while Abba Garima was copying the Gospels, God stopped the sun so that he might complete the task in a single day (Heldman 1993: 129). This incident is not included in Carlo Conti Rossini’s edition of the text, where it is reported instead that, while he began the task, angels completed the work for him in four hours (Conti Rossini 1897: 161-62). There is, however, an illustrated manuscript at the monastery showing in a single miniature Abba Garima copying the Gospel below both a full and a setting sun, under the inscription “As Abba Garima wrote the Gospel in the land of Atäret” (fig 20 here). Atäret is one of the places said to have been granted to the monastery by Gabra Masqäl (A. Bausi, “Ǝnda Abba Garima,“ EAE 2: 284:. I am grateful to Denis Nosnitsin and Nafisa Valieva for their assistance in the identification of this story.
– M. Heldman, “The Heritage of Late Antiquity,” in: R. Grierson (ed), African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia, (1993), pp. 117-32, esp. 129-30.
– C. Conti Rossini, “L’omilia di Yohannes, vescovo d’Aksum in onore di Garimâ,” in: Actes du Onzième Congrès des Orientalistes. Paris – 1897. Quatrième section. Hébreu – Phénicien – Aramée – Éthiopien – Assyrien, Paris (1898), pp. 139–177.
The Garima Gospels: Early Illuminated Gospel Books from Ethiopia, p.18, fig.20.
I was only able to access the preview, but this extraordinarily interesting book must be the source for what appears online. But let’s look deeper into the references.
The Heldman reference is as follows:
According to tradition, the monastery from which this manuscript [=Abba Garima Gospels I] takes its name was founded by Isaac, also known as Abba Garima, one of the Nine Saints who came to Ethiopia from the Roman Empire in the late fifth century. Monks of Abba Garima’s monastery reported to Donald Davies that Abba Garima himself had copied this manuscript, and that he had completed the task in a single day. God stopped the sun’s course one afternoon so that Abba Garima could finish copying his Gospels before night fell.[1]
Conversation between the author and Donald Davies, 1986.
So the story is circulating in just this form in Ethiopia currently.
The Rossini “section 4” is at Gallica here. The article turns out to be the publication of a text in Ethiopic, the Gadla Abba Garima, called by Rossini the “Homily of Yohannes, bishop of Axum, in honour of Garima.” He printed it from a manuscript in the French National Library (A = Paris BNF et. 132, 19th c.) and one in Berlin (= B, with an impenetrable shelfmark, 16th c.). The oldest MS is 15th century. “Yohannes” is of course John, and a bishop of that name did arrive in Ethiopia from Egypt around 1439.[1]
Unfortunately the homily is given without translation (!). The best the editor could do was to give a summary of what it says. Basically Abba Garima was a Byzantine prince named Isaac, who came to Ethiopia and took the name of Garima, and is one of the Nine Saints who appear in Ethiopian literature in the 14-15th century and are unknown before then.[2]
I’ve run Rossini’s summary over into English. Rossini states:
Here is a brief summary of the narration contained in the homily:
And then we get this:
After years of historic marriage, Masfyânos, king of Rome, and Sefengyà, his pious wife, have a son, Yeshâq, «whose name means “pearl”»; while the patriarch is baptizing him, a great supernatural light foretells his future glories (v. 14-36.) — At the age of twelve the child is sent to school, where he progresses rapidly: still growing up, his parents would like to give him a wife, but a celestial vision distracts them (v. 36-48).— With the death of Masfyânos, reluctant Yeshâq is placed on the throne. After seven years of peaceful reign, he secretly flees to Ethiopia, called there by a letter from the saint Pantalêwon of Somâ`t: the angel Gabriel transports him there in four days, while the messengers of Pantalêwon take ten months to return and four days. There Yeshâq received the monastic habit from Pantalêwon, and he remained with his teacher for a year (v. 48-108) — Then, having heard of his departure, Liqânos of Constantinople, Yem`atâ of Qosyât, Schmâ of Antioch, Gubâ of Cilicia, Afsê of Asia, Malâ` of Romyâ, and `Os of Caesarea also went to Ethiopia, and with great abstinence, and in great holiness, live in the same house with Pantalêwon and Yeshâq (v. 108-122). — While they are like this, a governor of Aksum announces to them how the country is dominated by a huge snake, Arwè, venerated as a God, and to which, in addition to infinite animals, a girl is given daily: assured of the fact thanks by sending of Yeshâq and `Os, who was very frightened at the sight of the monster, the nine saints with great prayers obtain from God the death of the serpent (v. 123-284). — Then Ethiopia is filled with tumults and disorders; until God, seeing the righteousness of the faith of that land, and hearing the prayers of the saints, invoking a king of David’s lineage, places Kâlêb on the throne. (v. 285-288). — After thirteen years, and many prodigies performed by them, a poor monk, Melkyânos, joins them, whose humility they despise; whereupon, to punish them, God takes away from them a mysterious face, which used to come down to illuminate their meals. Having obtained the pardon of this, the saints divided, and Yeshâq retired to Madarâ (v. 288-309). — There he performs great miracles: he frees a possessed person, heals a woman who has been suffering for thirty years from an uninterrupted flow of blood, etc., etc.
At the same time he is made head of the priests of Madarâ (v. 310-345). — One day, he sows a grain of wheat: in a short time this germinates, grows, produces a very rich harvest, which the saint distributes to the poor (v. 346-355). — Another day, having ceased writing in order to pray, the angels, who always served him, copy for him the gospel and his interpretation of it (v. 356-360). — Heals a girl invaded by an evil spirit (v. 360-442). — Visited by two monks, he feeds them, but puts away his portion, whereupon, a little later, invited, he celebrates the Eucharistic sacrifice, for which, his companions not knowing that he was still fasting, he is accused to Pantalêwon. The latter calls him to an interview, and, having met, he invites him, in order to be able to take him back in secret, to have his companions leave: «not only men, but let the trees of the wood and the stones move away from us!» exclaims Yeshâq: the trees and the stones obey, so, recognizing his innocence, Pantalêwon shouts: «Garamkani, you have amazed me!» and from this Yeshâq takes the name of Garimâ (v. 443-491). — Returning to the convent, one day Garimâ stops the sun to be able to fulfill his prayers (v. 492-496). — The donkey that used to serve him and bring him the gospel and food having died, he mourns him bitterly (v. 497-507). — After writing under a tree and having spat on a large stone, he makes a healthy spring gush forth (v. 507-511). — Having come across a village that does not observe Sunday rest, he scolds them, is badly beaten, and launches terrible curses against it (v. 512-527)» — King Gabra Masqal, hearing the saint’s wonders, visits him in Modani or Bèta Masqal, receives his blessing, has a church erected there in honour of the saint, and to this and to the convent of Garimâ he donates the land of Tâfâ, `Adwâ, Mesâh(?), Sebe`ito(?), and Maya Lehekuet (v. 528-556). — One time the saint sows a grape: immediately it germinates, and he draws the juice for the mass. Gathered around him many men, he gives rules and precepts for the community (v. 557-665). — Having descended into the heart of the mountain, he causes a wonderfully healthy spring to gush from it (v. 566-569). — When his pen falls while he is writing, it becomes a plant (v. 569-571). — Informed of all this, the king gives him the land of Atarêt and seven other cities (v. 571-575). — The saint, while going with Yem’âtâ, stops a large boulder, which Satan rolls against him to kill him, meets one last time with Pantalêwon, by whom he is comforted for the beatings given to him by the violators of Sunday rest (v. 576-592). — And finally, warned by God of his imminent end, he obtains from Him great promises for those who venerate him, bids farewell to his brothers and disappears on the 17th of the month of Sene (v. 593-640). — One of his disciples then has a vision of future painful events in the locality sanctified by Garimâ, where a wicked people will settle (v. 641-645).[3]
It is a pity that we do not have a translation of pp.161-2, because the summary does NOT give us the story as Judith McKenzie summarises it. I expect that Dr. McKenzie is correct. But note how this 15th century text has two episodes that each have part of the story, rather than just one? This suggests that the narrative we have today was assembled somewhere since this text was written. Hagiography is often revised over time.
I was unable to discover whether any of the Lives of the Nine Saints have been translated into any western language. If not, this is rather a shame. The Life of Garima is 23 pages; surely not beyond the powers of any native English speaker who knows Ethiopian? Is there anybody out there?
[1]Or so I gather from a rather marvellous article: Stuart Munro-Hay, “Saintly Shadows”, in: Walter Raunig, Steffen Wenig (edd.), Afrikas Horn, Series: Meroitica 22, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, (2005) 137-168; p. 162 (preview here).↩
Ecco un breve compendio della narrazione, contenuta nell’ omilia :
Dopo anni di storile matrimonio, Masfyânos, re di Roma, e Sefengyà, piissima sua moglie, hanno un figlio , Yeshâq, «il cui nome significa margarita»; mentre il patriarca lo battezza, una grande luce soprannanaturale ne preannuncia le future glorie (v. 14-36.) — A dodici anni il fanciotto è mandalo a scuola, ove rapidamente progredisce: cresciuto ancora, i suoi genitori vorrebbero dargli moglie, ma una visione celeste ne li distoglie (v. 36-48).— Morto Masfyânos, Yeshâq riluttante è posto sul trono. Dopo selle anni di pacifico regno, fugge di nascosto in Etiopia, chiamatovi da una lettera del santo Pantalêwon di Somâ`t: l’angelo Gabriele ve lo trasporta in quattro giorni, mentre i messi di Pantalêwon impiegano nel ritorno dieci mesi e quattro giorni. Colà Yeshâq receve da Pantalêwon l’abito monacale, e col suo maestro rimane un anno (v. 48-108) — Allora, avuta notìzia della sua andata, passano in Etiopia anche Liqânos di Costantinopoli, Yem`atâ di Qosyât, Schmâ di Antiochia, Gubâ della Cilicia, Afsê dell’ Asia, Malâ` di Romyâ, `Os di Cesarea, e con grandi astinenze, e in grande santità vivono in una sola casa con Pantalêwon e Yeshâq (v. 108-122). — Mentre così stanno, un governatore di Aksum annuncia loro come il paese sia dominato da un immane serpente, Arwè, venerato come un Dio, e in pasto al quale, oltre a infiniti animali, si dà giornalmente una fanciulla: sinceratisi del fatto mercè l’invio di Yeshâq e di `Os, il quale ultimo assai si spaventa alla vista dei mostro, i nove santi con grandi preghiere ottengono da Dio la morie del serpente (v. 123-284). — L’Etiopia allora si empie di tumulti e di disordini; sino a che Dio, vedendo la rettitudine della fede di quella terra, ed esaudendo le preci dei santi, invocanti un re della stirpe di Davide, pone sul trono Kâlêb. (v. 285-288). — Dopo tredici anni, e compiuti da loro numerosi prodigi, un povero monaco, Melkyânos, si unisce ad essi, i quali ne vilipendono l’umiltà; onde, per punirli, Dio lor toglie una face misteriosa, che soleva scendere a illuminarne i pasti. Ottenuto di ciò il perdono, i santi dividonsi, e Yeshâq ritirasi in Madarâ (v. 288-309). — Ivi egli compie grandi miracoli: libera un ossesso, guarisce una donna, da trenta anni sofferente per ininterrotto flusso di sangue, ecc., ecc.
Intanto, è fatto capo dei sacerdoti di Madarâ (v. 310-345). — Un giorno, egli semina un acino di grano: in breve ora questo germina, cresce, produce una ricchissima messe, che tutta il santo distribuisce ai poveri (v. 346-355). — Un altro giorno, avendo cessato di scrivere per pregare, gli angeli, che sempre lo servivano, gli copiano l’evangelo e la sua interpretazione (v. 356-360). — Sana una fanciulla invasa dallo spirito maligno (v. 360-442). — Visitato da due monaci, egli dà loro da mangiare, ma ripone la sua parte, onde, poco di poi, invitato, celebra il sacrifizio eucaristico, di che, ignorandosi dai suoi compagni com’ egli si conservasse digiuno, è accusato presso Pantalêwon. Questi lo chiama a colloquio, e, incontratolo, lo invita, per poterlo riprendere in segreto, a far allontanare i suoi compagni: «non gli uomini soltanto, ma gli alberi del bosco e le pietre si scostino da noi!» esclama Yeshâq: gli alberi e le pietre obbediscono, onde, riconosciuta l’innocenza, Pantalêwon grida: «Garamkani, mi hai stupito!» e da ciò Yeshâq trae il nome di Garimâ (v. 443-491). — Tornato al convento, un dì Garimâ ferma il sole per poter compiere le sue preghiere (v. 492-496). — Essendo morto l’asino che soleva servirlo e portargli l’evangelo ed il cibo, lo piange amaramente (v. 497- 507). — Stando a scrivere sotto un albero e avendo sputato su un gran sasso, ne fa sgorgare una fonte salutare (v. 507-511). — Imbattutosi in un villaggio che non osserva il riposo domenicale, lo redarguisce, è in malo modo percosso, e contro di esso lancia terribili maledizioni (v. 512- 527)» — Il re Gabra Masqal, intesi i prodigi del santo, lo visita in Modani o Bèta Masqal, ne riceve la benedizione, fa in onore del santo colà erigere una chiesa, e a questa ed al convento di Garimâ dona la terra di Tâfâ, ‘Adwâ, Mesâh(?), Sebe`ito(?), Maya Lehekuet (v. 528-556). — Una volta il santo semina un acino d’uva: subito questo germina, ed egli ne trae il succo per la messa. Adunatisi intorno a lui molti uomini, egli dà regole e precetti per la comunità (v. 557-665). — Sceso nel cuor del monte, fa da esso zampillare una fonte mirabilmente salutare (v. 566- 569). — Cadutagli la penna mentre sta scrivendo, essa diviene una pianta (v. 569-571). — Informato di tutto ciò, il re gli dona la terra d’Atarêt ed altre sette città (v. 571-575). — Il santo, mentre va con Yem’âtâ, ferma un grande macigno, che Satana, per ucciderlo, gli rotolava contro, incontrasi un’ultima volta con Pantalêwon, dal quale e confortato per le percosse dategli dai violatori del riposo domenicale (v. 576-592). — Ed infine, avvertito da Dio della prossima sua fine, e ottenute da Lui grandi promesse per quelli che lo venereranno, saluta i suoi fratelli e scompare al 17 del mese di sanê (v. 593-640). — Un suo discepolo ha, poscia, una visione circa futuri dolorosi eventi della località santificata da Garimâ, ove si stabilirâ un popolo malvagio (v. 641-645).↩
Here are a couple of things that I noticed recently, and might be useful to others.
Following an enquiry, I find that there is a translation of Theophylact on Matthew online here. This is certainly better than the $70 needed to obtain the 1992 translation of the same work, at Amazon.com here.
Next, the physical remains of ancient Rome are always interesting. Piranesi printed a drawing of the rear of the Pantheon, with what he claims are the remains of the Baths of Agrippa, completed before 12 BC and therefore one of the original public baths of thermae:
I was able to find online some photos of the same area, here.
Much of the baths still stood in the 17th century, despite use as a quarry for building materials. It would be interesting to track down the older sketches that apparently exist.
Finally I saw something about the Ethiopian canon of the bible. It is a common atheist jeer online is that the Ethiopian canon of the bible is larger than the normal, insinuating – the argument is rarely made explicit – that this proves that the bible does not exist, or is not by God, or something of the kind. I’ve never worried about the odd additions to the Ethiopian canon, since Ethiopia was not converted to Christianity until the canon was pretty much set, and the isolation of that community, the little that we know about it, and its unusual circumstances could result in any amount of oddity. One Ethiopian emperor used to eat pages of the bible when he was feeling ill, for instance. This is not a very educated world.
But I spent a little time looking into this. The Wikipedia article contains very poor sources. The only one of any value seemed to be by G.-A. Mikre-Sellassie,[1] This says on p.119:
It is rather difficult to determine what exactly the official Canon of Scriptures of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is. As R.W Cowley has rightly observed, one of the problems in this study is that in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church “the concept of canonicity is regarded more loosely than it is among most other churches”.[46] Apparently, the two terms, protocanonical and deuterocanonical, employed among many churches nowadays, are not known within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
46. R.W. Cowley, “The Biblical Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Today” in Ostikirchliche Studien, 23 (1974), 318-323. In this short article the author has attempted a careful study of the Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
This is not encouraging. In fact the article did not give any kind of history of how the canon came to be – a common problem. In general one gained the idea that in Ethiopian history the church was rather more important than the scriptures were, and the apocrypha might have a near-canonical status, or not, as times demanded. Perhaps our own view on canon is shaped by the Reformers here, and is more precise than might have been the case either than in antiquity or the middle ages? If so, the Ethiopians are merely continuing a late-antique vagueness, albeit shaped by their own unusual world.
One of the key sources is apparently E. Ullendorf, Ethiopia and the Bible: the Schweich Lectures 1967, OUP (1968). This I could not access, but a Google Books preview gave me p.31 f., which gives an account about the translation of the Old and New Testaments into Ge`ez:
I don’t think that we need to rely on this very much. Ullendorf also discusses the equally traditional idea that the bible in Ethiopian was translated by Arabic; and it seems to be a fact that many Ethiopian versions of ancient texts derive from an Arabic translation. However I quickly drowned in the number of books and articles that I would have to read to know more!
