Schlachtgesang „König Johannes gegen die Ägypter“

Of all the chant lyrics that were collected during the German Aksum-Expedition (1905/06) by Erich Kaschke a.o. and which are held in the Pho-nogramm-Archiv of the Ethnologisches Museum (former Museum für Völkerkunde) in Berlin, no more than two have so far been published: an Amharic song of praise for the German Kaiser (Voigt 2004) and a War-Song on Yoḥannəs IV (Smidt 2007). The last-mentioned text is however in its transcription so idiosyncratic and in its translation so free that a revised edition and a new translation seem necessary. It becomes apparent that the text is even more strongly influenced by Tigrinya. I have also been able to show that further rhyme structures exist: in the first part there is initially an -s rhyme and then an -a rhyme, and in the second part at first an -i/e rhyme followed by an -ot/ut(t) rhyme.