A Thousand Versions of Love (Shi Ye’Fikir Diqalawoch)

Shi Ye’Fikir Diqalawoch

(A Thousand Versions of Love)

O’Tam Pulto (Sinkneh Eshetu), October 2012, OLand Books, Addis Ababa

Cover Design: Abel Tilahun

A Thousand Versions of Love is a book unique and diverse in content, encompassing 35 wisdom stories from ancient China (in Amharic), the author’s reflections on cultural transformation and personal development based on the implications of each story (in Amharic and English), a newly proposed Ge’ez alphabet (Ha-Hu Be’Sidist Qan) and African language (A Thousand Versions of Love) learning methods (in Amharic, English and Chinese); a discussion on how the Ge’ez alphabet and numbers can be transformed and be adopted as one of Africa’s common heritages as a means of popularizing Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance.

Significant among the contents is the methods proposed for the study of Ge’ez Alphabet and Languages:

1.    Ha-Hu Be’Sidist Qan (Ha-Hu in Six Days): Inspired by literacy approaches employed elsewhere such as that of the educator Paulo Fereire in South America, this method proposes an approach to the study of the Fidal that begins from concepts and words and not from letters. The book presents story-based lessons for adult learners (foreigners, for example) that could help them learn the whole alphabet in, plus or minus, six days. Similar methods are being developed for children.

2.        Shi Ye’Fikir Diqalawoch (A Thousand Versions of Love): as a complementary to the study of Ge’ez letters, as well as as an independent method, A Thousand Versions of Love proposes a method to the study of some African languages such as Amharic based on the derivatives of a selected word. The Amharic word for “love,” Fikir, for example, has more than a thousand derivatives. Templates representing, more or less, the entire Amharic grammar are built based on these derivatives (Templates of Love).

Both the above methods, particularly if refined with the involvement of professionals in education and linguistics, are hoped to facilitate literacy in Ethiopia as well as the study of the Ge’ez letters and some Ethiopian languages as a foreign language.