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With 57,500,000 total speakers as of 2019, including around 25,100,000 second language speakers, Amharic is the most widely spoken of the group, the most widely spoken language of Ethiopia and second-most widely spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic. [3] [4] Tigrinya has 7 million speakers and is the most widely spoken language in ...
An annotated bibliography of the Semitic languages of Ethiopia. The Hague: Mouton. Tosco, Mauro. 2000. Is There an ‘Ethiopian Language Area’? Anthropological Linguistics 42,3: 329–365. Unseth, Peter. 1990. Linguistic bibliography of the Non-Semitic languages of Ethiopia. East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University.
Ethiopia's population is highly diverse, containing over 80 different ethnic groups. Most people in Ethiopia speak Afro-Asiatic languages, mainly of the Cushitic and Semitic branches. The former includes the Oromo and Somali, and the latter includes the Amhara and Tigray. Together these four groups make up three-quarters of the population.
Successful as second languages far beyond their numbers of contemporary first-language speakers, a few Semitic languages today are the base of the sacred literature of some of the world's major religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic (Biblical and Talmudic)), churches of Syriac Christianity (Classical Syriac) and ...
Amharic is a South Ethio-Semitic language, along with Gurage, Argobba and others. [25] [26] [27] Some time before the 1st century AD, the North and South branches of Ethio-Semitic diverged. [27] [28] Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Semitic language and mixed with the Semitic population.
Amharic is an Afro-Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Geʽez, or Ethiopic, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church; Amharic is written in a slightly modified form of the alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language. There are 34 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which ...
Group members have typically been astute traders and merchants, and have adjusted to the economic trends in their area. These factors have led to a decline in usage of the Argobba language. [3] [4] Argobba are considered endangered today due to exogamy and destitution as well as ethnic cleansing by the Abyssinian state over the centuries. [5] [6]
Ethio-Semitic languages; Gurage languages; M. Mesmes language This page was last edited on 10 July 2020, at 14:08 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons ...