This project explores how and why "development" as a state's language evolved and came to be an adjective of the state itself as Developmental state of Ethiopia? How it has evolved as a hegemonic discourse of rule in "modern" Ethiopia negotiating or displacing with the "premodern" discourse, ethos and language of stateness such as that of slavery, religion and tributary relation. It explores how the local concepts such as of silitane, zamena, zámnawinét and limat (civilization, modernity, modernization and development) as a state language and discourse have evolved to become almost synonymous with the state itself. Primarily, the research envisions conducting ethnography of the developmental state of Ethiopia focusing on Great Renaissance Dam over Nile. An ethnographic moment will be created in reading the state's and incumbent party's rhetoric about the dam. The study assumes Development as idea is not a merely imported thing of post second world war discourse nor it is not an isolated local invention but it is a product of a local and global nexus involving translation, negotiation and displacement of meanings.Hence the study critiques the modernization and development economics schools' discourse of emulation and singular modernity as well as the association of African post 1960s developmentalism to colonial legacy. It also engages and critiques the post development school for reactive discourse of alterity and difference of the non-western world and their call for the end of development era as "decolonizing development" and return to tradition.