Ethiopian War Against Illiteracy Gets Under Way

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 20, 10 February 1948, Page 3

Ethiopian War Against Illiteracy Gets Under Way

In Ethiopia, where for generations the complicated 198 symbol Amharic language has been used by the educated few, hundreds of boys from the" Emperor’s schools will return to their villages to teach adults to read and write with a new simplified system using only 39 letters. Dr. Laubach, well known missionary whose work in fighting illiteracy through mass literacy campaigns has been conducted in all parts of the world, in May 1947, working with a Revision Committee headed by Dr Robert W. Hambrook, Education Advisor to Emperor Haile Selassie, helped work out a system of regularising vowel sounds so that people will be able to learn to read in a fraction of the time it took before. Dr. Hambrook was in New York in September contracting for typewriters and linotype dies in the modified alphabet. Plans are going forward now for the translation into Amharic of “The Story of Jesus” which will be used throughout the land as follow-up reading. Dr. Laubach says that the. country could be literate in ten years—this is a land where there is now a 90 per cent illiteracy rate. Drawing for the Amharic charts were made by an American, together with artists from mission groups and Amharis experts from the Emperor’s offices. '