Talk:Amhara Province

"Kingdom" of Amhara

Amhara province was never a kingdom, but a mere province bound by the Walaqa river (and one other whose name I forget), directly under the Emperor; its ruler was not called "Negus," as in Gojjam (the title of a ruler of a kingdom). Even the word "kingdom," is not really used for these territories, as they were still provinces, although with more autonomy; this term is usually reserved for those kingdoms deemed to be vassal, and only partly under Ethiopian control (Adal, Dankal, etc.). Some outsiders (in later times) aggrandized the province, describing it as if it incorporated all Amharic-speaking territories, but this was never the case. For instance, it was added that Gondar was its capital, but Gondar wasn't founded until 1634, long after Amhara had been a province, and 400 km to the northwest in the province of Dembiya, a completely different province, which had multiple provinces between it and Amhara (e.g. medieval Begemdir, Angot, Lasta, Wag, Bulga, Gaynt, Saynt, Infraz, etc.). Give me a little time and I'll provide all the necessary sources. This page should also be moved back to "Amhara province" (which isn't possible right now, as there is more than one edit to the page). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 01:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I was using dictionary entries as sources:

This is the entry for “Amhara” from Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. “Amhara.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. 9^th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., 1985. ISBN 0-87779-508-8, ISBN 0-87779-509-6 (indexed), and ISBN 0-87779-510-X (deluxe):

Am•ha•ra \am-ˈhar-ə, -ˈhär-ə\ former kingdom now province of NW Ethiopia, [capital was] Gondar

This is the entry for “Amhara” from Guralnik, David B., Editor in Chief. “Amhara.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. Second College Edition. New York, NY: Prentice Hall Press, 1986. ISBN 0-671-41809-2 (indexed), ISBN 0-671-41807-6 (plain edge), ISBN 0-671-41811-4 (pbk.), and ISBN 0-671-47035-3 (LeatherKraft):

Am•ha•ra \äm häʹrä\ province of NW Ethiopia, formerly a kingdom

— Quin 01:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Also see the entry at Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, which I found by double-clicking on the word “Amhara” at this Encyclopædia Britannica page. It states the following: “former kingdom (now a province) NW Ethiopia capital Gondar.” Webster’s and Encyclopædia Britannica are very reliable sources. — Quin 01:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

These aren't nearly as reliable as the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (and other Ethiopisant sources), which makes note of the true size of the province (see the entry on "Amhara"). I don't have it on hand, so I can't give you a quotation, but see my short summary given in the last section of Amhara people (reference: Donald N. Levine "Amhara," in von Uhlig, Siegbert, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica:A-C, 2003, p.231.):

Up until the last quarter of the 20th century, "Amhara" was only used (in the form amariñña) to refer to Amharic, the language, or the medieval province located in Wollo (modern Amhara Region).

The source goes into more detail (which is relevance for this article but not the other, so I didn't care to summarize it when I had access to the source), and describes how it was delineated by the Walaqa river on the south, and another river (whose name I've forgotten) about 100 km northward. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 02:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It is possible that Amhara was once a kingdom that later became a province after it was aquired by the empire. This is very common throughout history. — Quin 02:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty certain that there was never a kingdom called Amhara. Prior to the Solomonic period, the area was under the Zagwe dynasty (see the map of Taddesse Tamrat in Church and State in Ethiopia, 1972), although during that period (and a bit prior), it's possible that part of it could have been under the control of the Sultanate of Shewa (founded 896), though I doubt it. I don't want to discourage you from adding to articles on Ethiopian history, but you have to distinguish between sources. Generally, what I've found, is that these general Encyclopedia articles tend to be off on some important details and don't fall in line very well with has been published by scholars of Ethiopian history in journals and books (e.g., you can still find some claiming Aksum was founded by South Arabians, when in fact it existed centuries after any Sabaean influence, or that Islam and lack of trade caused Aksum's decline, a theory which has largely been abandoned by scholars). Let me give you an example just from the first sentence of the two sources you gave, both of which give incorrect IPAs, (provided that your use of \\ around the words is how they appear in the source) providing instead transliterations, which also happen to be incorrect. The spelling "Amhara," is fine, but the IPA/transliteration "ämhärä," is not. Firstly, "ä," is not a letter in the International phonetic alphabet. The transliteration "ämhära" could be considered correct. "amhara" is spelled with four letters and the alphabet is an abugida, whose letters represent a consonant plus a vowel. Thus, Amhara is "'a-m(i)-ha-ra." There are 7 vowel "orders" (forms of a letter to represent different vowels), and the first order ("ä") and fourth order ("a") both represent \ɑ\ when used with the consonants ', `, ḥ, or h, (ignoring the fact that there are 4 different "h" spellings with their own transliterations, with the correct spelling being with "ḥ"). Moreover, this isn't IPA, but a misuse of one of the Ethiopian transliteration systems. Likewise, the Britannica article uses incorrect IPA. Its IPA spelling is \ɑmhɑrɑ\ (actually \ɑmɑrɑ\ in Amharic, since "h"s are often lost, i.e. become zero, although it can be said with an "h"). "ə" is the IPA spelling of the "first order vowel" that is often transliterated with "ä" (as above), but the spelling of the last letter is "ra," not "rä." Even more confusingly, "ə" is used in the transliteration system described before to represent the sixth order vowel (IPA \ɨ\). Hope that description wasn't too confusing.

BTW, its distinctness from regions in Dembiya and other Amharic-speaking areas are made evident in a few other sources that I do have on hand, like Richard Pankhurst's Borderlands. For instance, on page 42 (Pankhurst, Richard. The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century (Asmara, Eritrea: Red Sea Press, 1997), p.42), where the note "provinces of the north, including Damot, Amhara, Angot, Endärta, Bägémder," clearly distinguishes Amhara provinces from Begemder (the region east of Lake Tana) and Angot (the area north of medieval Amhara, just south of Tigray), both of which are included in the Amhara of the two sources you provided. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 03:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

See also (the best source on this topic, probably) Marie-Laure Derat, Le domaine des rois éthiopiens (1270–1527): espace, pouvoir et monachisme. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2003. ISBN 2-85944-480-7. It clearly defines the historical province of Wollo, IIRC.

Even better, actually (just found this map) is James Quirin, "Caste and Class in Historical North-West Ethiopia: The Beta Israel (Falasha) and Kemant, 1300-1900" in Journal of African History, 39 (1998), p 196. Cambridge University Press: United Kingdom. It shows all the medieval provinces of central-Northern Ethiopia, including Amhara, bound by the Walaqa (unnamed on the map, but shown) on the south and Bashilo/Basheta (whose name I forgot above) on the north, as well as Dembiya, Chelga, Lasta, etc., as well as excluding some of the above I mentioned (which are apparently districts/sub-provinces) and including others that I forgot to mention, like Fogera, Belesa, Wogera, etc. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 06:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no.

By the 19th century, Ethiopia as a whole was an empire under the negus negusti with the 2-3 main divisions of his realm being Tigray (/Tigré/etc), Amhara, and Shoa (/Shewa/etc). The problem is those regional lords tended towards independence nearly all the time and very often proclaimed themselves negus in their own right. EB1911 is obviously dated but full of sources of the situation in the late 19th century; before that, as mentioned by Yom, Shoa wasn't even part of Ethiopia proper. Given Tigray wasn't divided from Amhara, either, we really need better treatment of what Ethiopian idea is being translated as "province" here; the "sub-provinces" Yom's map lists seems to have been the actual administrative division until recently when (again) they were acting like kings more often than not. (And if that's really hard to accept to modern Ethiopians like Yom, maybe it helps if you step back and realize that the idea of Tigrayan, Amharic, and Showan kingship is implicit in the very idea of negus negusti and empire.)

In any case, it was independent enough that it often functioned as a kingdom and there are plenty of sources for that. — LlywelynII 21:30, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Amhara vs Bete Amhara

I want to preface that the Amhara province of the early modern period is distinct from the medieval Bete Amhara province. That is why Amhara province has its own page ሰይፍ (talk) 22:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)