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In terms of writing systems, Ethiopia's principal orthography is the Ge'ez script, employed as an abugida for several of the country's languages. For instance, it was the primary writing system for Afan Oromo until 1991.
The Ethiopian language area is a hypothesized linguistic area that was first proposed by Charles A. Ferguson (1970, 1976), who posited a number of phonological and morphosyntactic features that were found widely across Ethiopia and Eritrea, including the Ethio-Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic languages but not the Nilo-Saharan languages.
Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia. [18] [19] [3] [20] [21] The 2007 census reported that Amharic was spoken by 21.6 million native speakers in Ethiopia. [22] More recent sources state the number of first-language speakers in 2018 as nearly 32 million, with another 25 million second-language speakers in Ethiopia. [11]
Saho language; Saho–Afar languages; Sebat Bet Gurage language; Seze language; Shakacho language; Sheko language; Shinasha language; Sidama language; Siltʼe language; Soddo language; Somali language; Southern Oromo language; Suri language; Surmic languages
Historically linked to the peninsular homeland of Old South Arabian, of which only one language, Razihi, remains, Ethiopia and Eritrea contain a substantial number of Semitic languages; the most widely spoken are Amharic in Ethiopia, Tigre in Eritrea, and Tigrinya in both. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia.
The Geʽez language is classified as a South Semitic language, though an alternative hypothesis posits that the Semitic languages of Eritrea and Ethiopia may best be considered an independent branch of Semitic, [42] with Geʽez and the closely related Tigrinya and Tigre languages forming a northern branch while Amharic, Argobba, Harari and the ...
Ethio-Semitic (also Ethiopian Semitic, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic or Abyssinian [2]) is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan. [1] They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages , itself a sub-branch of Semitic , part of the Afroasiatic language family .
The North Omotic (Nomotic) or Ta-Ne Omotic languages, are a group of languages spoken in Ethiopia. Glottolog considers Ta-Ne-Omotic to be an independent language family , whereas older classifications may link it to the Omotic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family , though this affiliation is disputed.