Is Amharic the most Straussian language?

Amharic is susceptible of ambiguity to a remarkable degree, and Amharas have a tradition of writing clever, short poems, with an overt meaning and a hidden meaning, referred to as “wax and gold.”

That is from Sarah Howard’s Ethiopia: Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture.  An Ethiopian I had dinner with told me that Amharic is “eighty percent implication.”  Here is a research paper about ambiguity in Amharic.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed