the 1980s, Siltʼe has been written in the Geʽez script, originally developed for the now-extinct Geʽez language and most familiar today in its use for Amharic and Tigrinya. This orthographic system makes distinctions among only seven vowels. Some of the short-long distinctions in Siltʼe are therefore not marked. In practice, this probably does not interfere with comprehension because there are relatively few minimal pairs based on vowel length. In written Siltʼe, the seven Geʽez vowels are mapped onto the ten Siltʼe vowels as follows: ä → a: አለፈ alafa 'he passed' u → u, uu: ሙት mut 'death', muut 'thing' i → ii: ኢን iin 'eye' word-final i: መሪ mari 'friend' i ending a noun stem: መሪከ marika 'his friend' impersonal perfect verb i suffix: ባሊ baali 'people said'; በባሊም babaalim 'even if people said' a → aa: ጋራሽ gaaraaš 'your (f.) house' e → e, ee: ኤፌ eeffe 'he covered' ǝ → i (except as above): እንግር ingir 'foot' consonant not followed by a vowel: አስሮሽት asroošt 'twelve' o → o, oo: ቆጬ kʼočʼe 'tortoise', kʼoočʼe 'he cut' Language vitality Meshesha Make Jobo reports that the use of the Siltʼe language is being replaced by the use of Amharic by some speakers for some domains. He points to large political and social factors, many from the national level. He also points out smaller, local factors, such as the lack of creative genres. References Bibliography Dirk Bustorf 2011: Lebendige Überlieferung: Geschichte und Erinnerung der muslimischen Siltʼe Äthiopiens. With an English Summary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (Aethiopistische Forschungen 74). Cohen, Marcel (1931). Études d'éthiopien méridional. Société Asiatique, Collection d'ouvrages orientaux. Paris: Geuthner. Drewes, A.J. (1997). "The story of Joseph in Sïltʼi Gurage", in: Grover Hudson (ed.), Essays on Gurage language and culture: dedicated to Wolf Leslau on the occasion of his 90th birthday, November 14, 1996, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 69–92. Gutt, E.H.M. & Hussein Mohammed (1997). Siltʼe–Amharic–English dictionary (with a concise grammar by E-A Gutt). Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press. Gutt, E.-A. (1983). Studies in the phonology of Silti. Journal of Ethiopian Studies 16, pp. 37–73. Gutt, E.-A. (1991). "Aspects of number in Siltʼi grammar", in: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (Addis Ababa), pp. 453–464. Gutt, E.-A. (1997). "Concise grammar of Siltʼe", in: Gutt, E.H.M. 1997, pp. 895–960. Leslau, W. (1979). Etymological Dictionary of Gurage (Ethiopic). 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Wagner, Ewald (1983). "Seltʼi-verse in arabischer Schrift