Amharic Cultural Reader

This collection of essays has two purposes: first to give the advanced student of Amharic a sample of the Amharic writing style and secondly to provide information on Ethiopia's cultural background. The texts were written by several Ethiopian university students some 40 years ago on subjects with which they were most familiar such as naming, christening, wedding, burial ceremony, food and drink, the manner of wearing clothes, house construction in Amhara country, daily work of an Ethiopian woman, landholding disputes, beauty, merchant, mercato, country market, artisans, elderhood, priests, dabtara, monkhood, divination, Christmas, Easter, Addis Ababa, the City of Gondar, Harar City etc. Although some time has passed since the collection was compiled the texts convey a good picture of Ethiopian culture. Each Amharic text is given an English translation on the opposite side. The book is completed by an Amharic-English Dictionary of nearly 90 pages and an index of English words and Amharic lexemes.