Today’s word is also a word used in the land of Ethiopia to describe an event happening in just seven days from today. During the festival young boys will call at homes, sing, jostle and disturb the peace until fresh dough prepared for baking is given to each. Later in the evening bonfires are lit outside each home, where I assume the dough is either baked in an open fire or used in some other method. Buhe falls on August 21.
Today’s word is a Amharic word used in Ethiopia:
buhe – fresh dough
Amharic is the second most Semitic language in the world after Arabic. It is the official working lingo of Ethiopia and spoken in such places as Egypt, Israel, and Sweden by a number of emigrants. The writing system called abugida is based from the now extinct Ge’ez language. In addition to Amharic other widely spoken languages in the country include Tigrinya, Somali, and Arabic to name a few. Wikipedia has good background information on the lang if you’re at all interested, but for those ready to dig in here’s a couple of places to learn online.
Ethiopian Restaurant dot com was kind enough to include some basic Amharic to use while in a restaurant from which I pulled our word for the day. This a great starter to days of the week, numbers, asking for your bill and other small useful phrases. Listen online to KFAI radio for Amharic broadcast out of Minnesota. Check their schedule for program times and listen daily as a self-learning tool. African Language has Amharic software for purchase and Amazon has a number of books for purchase including the Amharic LP phrasebook.
Past Amharic words: qurse, shuruba, ameseginalehu