What Is in a Term? A Historical and Linguistic Examination of the Revolutionary Terminology: ywdäm, “let it be demolished, down with,” 1974–1977

This paper attempts to subject revolutionary terminology to understand the extent of reinterpretation of newly introduced terms by the local language and culture. It also would like to draw scholarly attention to the link between terminology and political action during the early years of the Ethiopian revolution, 1974–1977. It has four sections and starts with a discussion of the context in which revolutionary terminology is proposed to be studied and a section on theories of space and the situatedness of language that lays out the conceptual frame of the study. This section is followed by a discussion of literature on terminology. Then, a frequently used revolutionary term, ywdäm, “let it be demolished, down with,” during the time under discussion will be examined in some detail, and this will be followed by a brief conclusion.