Study Notes 3 / Harla (Sept. 6, 2020)
Old Harari (also Harla) is an understudied Classical African Language with a rich pre-modern literature produced in and around the city of Harar in Eastern Ethiopia. It is an Ethio-Semitic closely related to Eastern Gurage and more distantly related to Classical Ethiopic or Ge’ez. Harla is written typically in the Arabic script and most of the literature comprises Muslim religious texts and poetry.
The excerpt above is from the Kitāb al-Farā’id (Book of Obligations), a collection of Islamic axioms and prayers attributed to Āw Abd Al-Rahmān al-‘Arāšī of Harar (d. ca. 1580s). His is one of at least three different Harla texts by the same name.
The excerpt above is taken from “Text B” in Ewald Wagner’s transcription in Harari-Texte in Arabischer Schrift (Franz Steiner, 1983). The text is based on seven manuscripts, including IES 270 in Addis Ababa.
Harla Text:
رحمت زالخ ملؤ اللو زلمديخ اتخلئا
زطوقسيخ جافى اتطلعا اللو كفت لن زرحمت برأ
Transliteration:
raḥmat z-ālaḫ mulūʾ allo zi-lamadeḫ at-ḫalʾa
zi-ṭoqaseḫ gāfī at-ṭalʿa allo kifat-lana zi-raḥmat barʾa
Translation:
O Allah, you who are full of compassion, reject not the one who [seeks to] learn about you,
O Allah, despise not the slave who calls upon you, open for us the door of [your] compassion.