Ethiopian Singer Jackie Gossee's 2012 love song "Sela Bey" (information & video)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series on the Ethiopian love song "Sela Bey" by Jackie Gossee.

Part I provides information about Ethiopian singer Jackie Gosee and showcases the official YouTube video of his 2012 hit love song "Sela Bey". In addition, Part I includes information and questions about the meanings of the words "Sela  Bey" in that song.  

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-global-reach-of-ethiopian-singer.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II showcases the official YouTube video of Ethiopian singer Jackie Gosee's song "Sela Bey". Part II also presents selected comments from the discussion thread of that video are also included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Jacky Gosee for his musical legacy thanks to all those who are associated with this music and this video. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO- Jacky Gosee - Sela Bey

Hope Music Ethiopia, Dec 28, 2012
-snip-
Statistics as of June 25, 2020 at 3:10 PM EDT
Total # of views-8,432,261
Total # of likes-17K
Total # of dislikes-2.6K
Total # of comments-1,812

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INFORMATION ABOUT JACKY GOSEE
From https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/8317#:~:text=Gosee%20lives%20in%20Amsterdam%2C%20and,to%20the%20Ethiopian%20pop%20sound.&text=Jacky%20was%20born%20in%20Ethiopia,establishing%20himself%20as%20an%20artist
"Gossaye Kellemu, alias Jacky Gosee, is one of the vocalists from the younger generation rising to Ethiopian stardom, along with guys like Temesgen Gebregziabher and Ziggy Zaga. Gosee lives in Amsterdam, and brings something of a modern, urban image to the Ethiopian pop sound.

Judging by the number of Facebook pages with titles like “I Love Jacky Gosee,” it appears that the baby-faced singer is particularly popular with the ladies. His biggest hit, “Sela Bey” features a nasty solo on the traditional mesengo fiddle and some wild choreographies.

Jacky was born in Ethiopia but relocated to The Netherlands at a young age. He has been overcoming many barriers to achieve his goal in establishing himself as an artist."

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From https://habeshaentertainment.blogspot.com/2014/07/jacky-gosee.html

Know one of Ethiopian Celebrities Jacky Gosee, Posted by Habesha Entertaiment, July 14, 2014

"Jacky Gosee is one of the most famous celebrities in Ethiopia this days. Jacky is well known for his unique style of singing and dancing of mixed traditional and modern music. He developed this ways of music since he was a child when he was working for Child’s Theater House where he used to sing and dance both traditional and modern songs and he got this idea of joining them together.

Jacky Gosee is high school graduate and he stopped his education because he was highly attracted by the music work.

Most of Ethiopians like Jacky Gosee for his work and they call him the Ethiopian Chris Brown. Not only the people love Jacky Gosee but he loves them he even had a known quote “my money are my fans”

He is well known for his work of “Fiammetta” which means little flame, "Demo Afe“, and “Chirash” which got around 4 million views on YouTube. He also made amazing music work including "Yene Akal" and "Sela bey". “Sela bey” had become the sauce of weddings in Ethiopia. Jacky Gosee speaks the meaning of “Sela bey” as “Be happy and stop worrying”."...

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WHAT DOES "SELA BEY" MEAN IN JACKIE GOSEE'S SONG WITH THAT TITLE?
The lyrics  for Jackie Gosee's song  "Sela Bey" can be found at https://ethiozeima.com/2011/11/15/sela-bey-gossaye-kelemu-jacky/. Two of the tags for that song are "amharic lyrics" and "amharic song lyrics".  However, Google translate gives no results for requests to translate these lyrics from Amharic to English (or any other language). Why is that?

In 2018 Ka Ge, a commenter on the discussion thread for the official YouTube video of Jackie Gosee's song "Selah Bey"  wrote 

"Anyone know what sela means... this is the second sone I've heard it in. I speak Amharic fairly well for someone that's foreign born but I have no idea what it means... my father didn't know either lol"
-end of quote-

If the word "Selah" and "Bey" are standard words in Amharic, why do Amharic speakers not know what these words mean?

Are "sela" and "bey" standard words in an Ethiopian language or Ethiopian language/s other than Amharic? If so, what Ethiopian language/s are they are part of and what are their standard meanings in that language or those languages?

And if "sela" and "bey" are standard words in an Ethiopian language, are they two separate words, or are they always used together?  And if these words are standard parts of an Ethiopian language, were/are they also given vernacular meanings by Ethiopians or were/are these words only given a particular vernacular meanings for Jackie Gosee's hit song "Sela Bey"?

In https://habeshaentertainment.blogspot.com/2014/07/jacky-gosee.html , Jacky Gosee said "Sela Bey" means "Be happy and stop worrying. If Gosee came up with his  meaning "be happy and stop worrying" for the words "Sela Bey", the source for the meaning he conferred on those words (or at least the first word "sela") probably came from the Biblical word "selah". According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selah
"Selah" ....is a word used 74 times in the Hebrew Bible—seventy-one times in the Psalms and three times in the Book of Habakkuk.^[1] The meaning of the word is not known...It is probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, something like "stop and listen." ...

That Wikipedia page cautions that "the word "selah" shouldn't be confused with the word "sela" "which means "rock", or in an adjectival form, "like a rock", i.e.: firm, hard, heavy.)"...

"Sela" is sometimes given as a  first name for females in the United States (and probably elsewhere). And "Bey"  is an Ottoman Turkish word that is used as a title for "chieftain" and is also used as a last name (for instance, by African Americans who are members of the Moorish Science Temple).

Then again, perhaps Jackie Gosee meant that the song "Sela Bey" and not the words "Selah Bey" mean "be happy and stop worrying". Maybe "Sela Bey" is just the name for the woman who is featured in his love song with that title.

While questions and confusion about the title "Sela Bey" and/or the meaning/s of the words "Selah Bey" don't detract from the merits of that song, it would be nice if these questions are answered.

Ethiopians, please help a sister out by responding to these questions with information about the words "selah" and "bey" in your country. Thanks in advance.

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This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series on Jackie Gosee's song "Sela Bey".

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Names For The Days Of The Week In Five Afroasiatic Languages That Are Spoken In Ethiopia

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides information about Ethiopia, Northeast Africa. This post also provides information and lists for names of days of the week in five major Afroasiatic languages in Ethiopia: Amharic, Oromo, Sidaama (Sidama, Sidamo), Somali, and Tigrinya.

Some of these languages may also be spoken in certain other surrounding nations. That information is provided in the summaries that are given below about those languages.

This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series that provides information about and lists for day names in various African languages. Click the "African languages days of the week" tag to find other posts in this ongoing series.

The content of this post is presented for linguistic, cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT ETHIOPIA
Excerpt #1:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia
"Ethiopia ... officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia ... is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants,[3] Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world, as well as the second-most populous nation on the African continent after Nigeria. It occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi), and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa.[3]

Some of the oldest evidence for anatomically modern humans has been found in Ethiopia.[9] It is widely considered as the region from which modern humans first set out for the Middle East and places beyond.[10][11][12] According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era.[13] Tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region,[14][15][16][17] followed by the Ethiopian Empire circa 1137. Ethiopia derived prestige with its uniquely successful military resistance during the late 19th-century Scramble for Africa, becoming the only African country to defeat a European colonial power and retain its sovereignty. Subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopia's flag following their independence.* It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations and the United Nations.

[...]

According to Ethnologue, there are ninety individual languages spoken in Ethiopia.[182] Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches. The former includes Oromiffa, spoken by the Oromo, and Somali, spoken by the Somalis; the latter includes Amharic, spoken by the Amhara, and Tigrinya, spoken by the Tigrayans. Together, these four groups make up about three-quarters of Ethiopia's population. Other Afroasiatic languages with a significant number of speakers include the Cushitic Sidamo, Afar, Hadiyya and Agaw languages, as well as the Semitic Gurage languages, Harari, Silt'e, Argobba languages.[5] Arabic, which also belongs to the Afroasiatic family, is likewise spoken in some areas.[183]

Additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by Omotic ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Among these idioms are Aari, Bench, Dime, Dizin, Gamo-Gofa-Dawro, Maale, Hamer, and Wolaytta.[5]
Languages from the Nilo-Saharan family are also spoken by ethnic minorities concentrated in the southwestern parts of the country. These languages include Nuer, Anuak, Nyangatom, Majang, Suri, Me'en, and Mursi.[5]

English is the most widely spoken foreign language, and is the medium of instruction in secondary schools. Amharic was the language of primary school instruction, but has been replaced in many areas by regional languages such as Oromiffa, Somali or Tigrinya.[184] While all languages enjoy equal state recognition in the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia, Amharic is recognized as the official working language of the Federal Government.[1] The various regions of Ethiopia and chartered cities are free to determine their own working languages."....

[...]

Languages of Ethiopia as of 2007 Census.[5]
Oromo (33.80%)
Amharic (29.33%)
Somali (6.25%)
Tigrinya (5.86%)
Sidamo (4.04%)
Wolaytta (2.21%)
Gurage (2.01%)
Afar (1.74%)
Hadiyya (1.70%)
Gamo-Gofa-Dawro (1.45%)
Other (11.61%)
-snip-
* From https://flagspot.net/flags/et.html:
"Many African countries adopted the colours of the Ethiopian flag on their flags when they achieved independence which, together with black, became known as the Pan-African colours."

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Excerpt #2
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_of_Africa
"The Horn of Africa ... is a peninsula in Northeast Africa. It juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, lying along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. The area is the easternmost projection of the African continent. The Horn of Africa denotes the region containing the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.[1][2][3][4]

[...]

Ethnicity and languages
Besides sharing similar geographic endowments, the countries of the Horn of Africa are, for the most part, linguistically and ethnically linked together,[4] evincing a complex pattern of interrelationships among the various groups.[79]

According to Ethnologue, there are 10 individual languages spoken in Djibouti, 14 in Eritrea, 90 in Ethiopia, and 15 in Somalia.[80] Most people in the Horn speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches. The former includes Oromo, spoken by the Oromo people in Ethiopia, and Somali, spoken by the Somali people in Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia; the latter includes Amharic, spoken by the Amhara people of Ethiopia, and Tigrinya, spoken by the Tigrinyas of Eritrea and Tigrayans of Ethiopia, respectively. Other Afroasiatic languages with a significant number of speakers include the Cushitic Afar, Saho, Hadiyya, Sidamo and Agaw languages, as well as the Semitic Tigre, Gurage, Harari, Silt'e and Argobba tongues.[81]

Additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by Omotic communities inhabiting Ethiopia's southern regions. Among these idioms are Aari, Dizi, Gamo, Kafa, Hamer and Wolaytta.[82]

Languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo families are also spoken in some areas by Nilotic and Bantu ethnic minorities, respectively. These tongues include the Nilo-Saharan Me'en and Mursi languages used in southwestern Ethiopia, and Kunama and Nara idioms spoken in parts of southern Eritrea. In the riverine and littoral areas of southern Somalia, Bajuni, Barawani, and Bantu groups also speak variants of the Niger-Congo Swahili and Mushunguli languages.[8]"...

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NAMES OF THE WEEK IN FIVE TRADITIONAL AFRICAN LANGUAGES THAT ARE SPOKEN IN ETHIOPIA
(These languages are given in alphabetical order.)

Amharic
Excerpt #1:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic
"Amharic (አማርኛ) ... Amharic: Amarəñña, is an Afro-Asiatic language of the Semitic branch. It is spoken as a mother tongue by the Amhara in Ethiopia. The language serves as the official working language of Ethiopia, and is also the official or working language of several of the states within the federal system.[10] Amharic is the second-most widely spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic....

Background
It has been the working language of courts, language of trade and everyday communications, the military, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church since the late 12th century and remains the official language of Ethiopia today.[11][12] Amharic is spoken by 22 million native speakers in Ethiopia and 15 million secondary speakers in Ethiopia.[11][1] Additionally, 3 million emigrants outside of Ethiopia speak the language. Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic. In Washington DC, Amharic became one of the six non-English languages in the Language Access Act of 2004, which allows government services and education in Amharic.[13] Furthermore, Amharic is considered a holy language by the Rastafari (ራስ ተፈሪ) religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide. It is the most widely spoken language in the Horn of Africa.[14]"...

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Excerpt #2:
From https://ethiopia.limbo13.com/index.php/amharic_seasons_months_weeks/
"Days of the week:
Monday - säñño ሳኞ
Tuesday - maksäñño ማክሰኞ
Wednesday - räbu / rob ረቡ / ሮብ
Thursday - amus / hamus አሙስ / ኀሙስ
Friday - arb አርብ
Saturday - k’ïdame ቅዳሜ
Sunday - ïhud እሑድ"

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Oromo (Afaan Oromo)
Excerpt #1:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oromo_language
"Oromo ... is an Afroasiatic language. It is the most widely spoken tongue in the family's Cushitic branch. Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by more than 24.6 million Oromo people and neighboring peoples in Ethiopia, and by an additional half million in parts of northern and eastern Kenya.[6] It is also spoken by smaller numbers of emigrants in other African countries such as South Africa, Libya, Egypt, and Sudan. Oromo is a dialect continuum; not all varieties are mutually intelligible. The native name for the Oromo language is "Afaan Oromo", which translates to "mouth (language) of Oromo." It was formerly known as "Galla", a term now considered pejorative but still found in older literature.

[...]

Speakers
About 85 percent of Oromo speakers live in Ethiopia, mainly in Oromia Region. In addition, in Somalia there are also some speakers of the language.[7] In Kenya, the Ethnologue also lists 722,000 speakers of Borana and Orma, two languages closely related to Ethiopian Oromo.[8] Within Ethiopia, Oromo is the language with the largest number of native speakers.

Within Africa, Oromo is the language with the fourth most speakers, after Arabic (if one counts the mutually unintelligible spoken forms of Arabic as a single language and assumes the same for the varieties of Oromo), Swahili, and Hausa.

Besides first language speakers, a number of members of other ethnicities who are in contact with the Oromo speak it as a second language. See for example, the Omotic-speaking Bambassi and the Nilo-Saharan-speaking Kwama in northwestern Oromiyaa.[9]

[...]

Oromo is written with a Latin alphabet called Qubee which was formally adopted in 1991.[10] Various versions of the Latin-based orthography had been used previously, mostly by Oromos outside of Ethiopia and by the OLF by the late 1970s (Heine 1986).[11] With the adoption of Qubee, it is believed more texts were written in the Oromo language between 1991 and 1997 than in the previous 100 years. In Kenya, the Borana and Waata also use Roman letters but with different systems"...
-snip-
*I added italics to this sentence to highlight it.

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Excerpt #2:
From http://ilanguages.org/oromo_vocabulary.php
Days of the week [Omoro]

Monday: dafinoo / ojja duree
Tuesday: facaasaa
Wednesday: roobii
Thursday: kamisa
Friday: jimaata
Saturday: sambata xinnaa / sambata duraa
Sunday: dilbata / sambata guddaa

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Sidaama (Sidama, Sidamo)
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidamo_language
"Sidaama or Sidaamu Afoo is an Afro-Asiatic language, belonging to the Highland East Cushitic branch of the Cushitic family. It is spoken in parts of southern Ethiopia by the Sidama people, particularly in the densely populated Sidama Zone. Sidaamu Afoo is the ethnic autonym for the language, while Sidaminya is its name in Amharic. Although it is not known to have any specific dialects, it shares over 64% lexical similarity with Alaba-K'abeena, 62% with Kambaata, and 53% with Hadiyya, all of which are other languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia.

The term Sidamo has also been used by some authors to refer to larger groupings of East Cushitic and even Omotic languages.[4] The languages within this Sidamo grouping contain similar, alternating phonological features.[5] The results from a research study conducted in 1968-1969 concerning mutual intelligibility between different Sidamo languages suggest that Sidaama is more closely related to the Gedeo language, which it shares a border with to the south, than other Sidamo languages.[6] According to the Ethnologue, the two languages share a lexical similarity of 60%.[7] Sidaama vocabulary has been influenced by Ge'ez and Amharic, and has in turn influenced Oromo vocabulary."...

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Excerpt #2:
From https://hawassasidama.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/fichchee-the-sidama-peoples-new-year-celebration-as-one-of-most-distinguished-peculiar-features-of-the-sidama-people/ FICHCHEE: The Sidama people’s New Year Celebration as one of the most distinguished peculiar features of the Sidama people, by MTT
Hawassa, Sidama, Ethiopia, 05 August 2013
..."Based on investigation findings of the Ayyantto (“Sidama astrologists”) and according to established calendar Sidama has a week comprising of five days. Names of days of the week were derived from market days occurring in different places and were name as Diko, Deella, Kawaado and Kawalanka respectively."...
-snip-
Please add to this section on the names for days of the week in Sidaama (Sidama).

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Somali
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_language
"Somali is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken as a mother tongue by Somalis in Greater Somalia and the Somali diaspora. Somali is an official language of Somalia, a national language in Djibouti, and a working language in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. It is used as an adoptive language by a few neighboring ethnic minority groups and individuals. The Somali is written officially with the Latin alphabet.

Classification
Somali is classified within the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family; specifically, as Lowland East Cushitic along with Afar and Saho.[6] Somali is the best-documented Cushitic language,[7] with academic studies of the language dating back to the late 19th century.[8]

Geographic distribution
Somali is spoken by Somalis in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Yemen and Kenya, and by the Somali diaspora. It is also spoken as an adoptive language by a few ethnic minority groups and individuals in these areas.
Somali is the second most widely spoken Cushitic language after Oromo.[9]

As of 2006, there were approximately 16.6 million speakers of Somali, of which around 8.3 million resided in Somalia.[10] The language is spoken by an estimated 95% of the country's inhabitants,[8] and also by a majority of the population in Djibouti.[7]

Following the start of the Somali Civil War in the early 1990s, the Somali-speaking diaspora increased in size, with newer Somali speech communities forming in parts of the Middle East, North America and Europe.[10]"...

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Excerpt #2:
From https://www.facebook.com/LearningSomali/posts/236327081793 Learn the Somali Language, January 6, 2010
"Days of the Week:
Isniin: Monday
Talaado : Tuesday
Arbaco : Wednesday
Khamiis : Thursday
Jimco : Friday
Sabti : Saturday
Axad : Sunday"

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Tigrinya
Excerpt #1:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigrinya_language
"Tigrinya (often written as Tigrigna;.... is an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic branch. It is mainly spoken in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, with around 6,915,000 total speakers. Tigrinya speakers in Ethiopia (known as Tigrayans; Tigrawot; feminine Tigrāweyti, male Tigraway, plural Tegaru) number around 4,320,000 individuals, and are centered in the northern Tigray Region. The Tigrinya speakers in Eritrea (Tigrinyas) total roughly 2,540,000, and are concentrated in the southern and central areas. Tigrinya is also spoken by emigrants from these regions, including some Beta Israel.[4]

Tigrinya should not be confused with the related Tigre language. The latter is spoken by the Tigre people, who inhabit the lowland regions of Eritrea to the north and west of the Tigrinya speech area...

Tigrinya is the third most spoken language in Ethiopia after Amharic and Oromo, and the most widely spoken language in Eritrea (see languages). It is also spoken by large immigrant communities around the world, in countries including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. In Australia, Tigrinya is one of the languages broadcast on public radio via the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service.[11]

Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically.[12] No dialect appears to be accepted as a standard."...

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Excerpt #2
From http://www.eritrea.be/old/eritrea-languages.htm Days of the week in Tigrinya
"Monday - Senuy
Tuesday - Selus
Wednesday - Rebu 'a
Thursday - Hamus
Friday - Arbi
Saturday - Kadam
Sunday - Senbet"

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