Amharic

Amharic is a language belonging to the Semitic family (a branch of the Afroasiatic language family), widely spoken in Ethiopia, particularly in the central and northeastern parts of the country. It is one of the most widely spoken languages in East Africa and serves as a lingua franca through which speakers of different languages communicate, especially in urban centers.

Amharic is written using the Ge'ez script, also known as 'Fidel'. The script is an abugida system: each character represents a consonant and vowel combination, with the vowel indicated by small modifications to the character's shape. For this reason, the script is not an alphabet of separate letters like the Latin alphabet.

Place in the language family

Amharic belongs to the southern branch of the Semitic languages of Ethiopia. It is closely related to other Ethiopian languages such as Tigrinya, Gurage, and Argobba, and to Ge'ez, an ancient language now used primarily for religious purposes in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Like other Semitic languages, Amharic is based on a consonantal root system in which different patterns are combined with the roots to create different words and tenses.

Grammar

The basic word order is subject–object–verb (SOV), which differs from some other Semitic languages such as Arabic. The verb takes affixes indicating person, number, and gender. There are two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. The use of honorific forms is common when speaking to or about someone of high status or authority.

Official status

Amharic is the working language of the Ethiopian federal government and is used in administration, education, media, and courts. The Ethiopian constitution allows regional administrations to choose their own working languages, which is why other languages such as Oromo, Tigrinya, and Somali serve as working languages in their respective regions. In recent years, the federal government has added additional languages to share official language status.