Imperial Academy (Ethiopia)

The Imperial Academy was the national academy of Ethiopia, first established by the Ministry of Education and Fine Arts in 1942. It was tasked with preserving the "traditional genius" of the country; among other things, the native Ethiopic script and the literary and scholarly tradition it enabled, as well as the "promotion of research in languages and fine arts".

In 1956 Emperor Haile Selassie promulgated a decree chartering the Academy as an independent organisation. The Academy, as a single body, eventually ceased to operate during the time of the Derg regime in the 1980s, although some of its constituent organizations have persisted- directly or indirectly- to the present.

At the time of its foundation, the Academy comprised three subsidiary groups: The Language and Literature Council, the Fine Arts Council, and the Science and Technology Council.

The role of the Language and Literature Council, after its establishment, over time shifted from the academic study of languages and literature towards that of a Language regulator (i.e. the Académie française or the Real Academia Española) for the Amharic language. In light of this, it was reorganised into the National Academy of the Amharic Language in 1972. It was charged with setting the national language policy as to "foster the growth of the Amharic language" and to "encourage the development of its literature". To this end, it designed a programme of spelling reform (albeit unimplemented), published compilations of Ethiopian proverbs (in multiple language), volumes of translated Ge'ez-language poetry, technical and bi-lingual dictionaries, and multiple professional journals.

After the overthrow of the imperial government by the left-wing Derg (Coordinating Council of the Armed Forces) in the 1974 coup d'état and the installation of a socialist military government, the Language Academy was seen as a chauvinistic vehicle of linguistic imperialism, and one that favoured of the tongue of the ruling elite at the expense of the country's eight dozen other languages and dialects. As a result, in 1979 it was transformed into the Academy of Ethiopian Languages under the Ministry of Culture and Sport, whose regulatory remit extended to all Ethiopian languages. It had four academic subcommittees: lexicography, linguistics, terminology, and literature- both written and oral (the inclusion of the latter signifying a significant break with the prior emphasis on Ge'ez and its literary tradition).

...
Wikipedia