Amharic

Semitic language of Ethiopia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Amharic (/æmˈhærɪk/[4][5][6] or /ɑːmˈhɑːrɪk/;[7] (Amharic: አማርኛ), Amarəñña, IPA: [amarɨɲːa] (Loudspeaker.svglisten)) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns of Ethiopia.[8]

Quick facts: Amharic, Pronunciation, Native to, Ethni...
Amharic
አማርኛ (Amarəñña)
Amharic.svg
Amharic script, fidäl, from Ge'ez script
Pronunciation[amarɨɲːa]
Native toEthiopia
EthnicityAmhara
SpeakersNative: 32 million (2018)[1]
L1+L2: 57 million (2019)[1]
Afro-Asiatic
Geʽez script (Amharic syllabary)
Ge'ez Braille
Signed Amharic[2]
Official status
Official language in
Flag_of_Ethiopia.svg Ethiopia[3]
Regulated byImperial Academy (former)
Language codes
ISO 639-1am
ISO 639-2amh
ISO 639-3amh
Glottologamha1245
Linguasphere12-ACB-a
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The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions.[9] In 2018, it had over 32,400,000 mother-tongue speakers and more than 25,100,000 second language speakers, making the total number of speakers over 57,500,000.[1] Amharic is the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo). Amharic is also the second largest Semitic language in the world (after Arabic).[1][10]

Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script.[11] The segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units is called an abugida (አቡጊዳ).[12] The graphemes are called fidäl (ፊደል), which means "script", "alphabet", "letter", or "character".

There is no universally agreed-upon Romanization of Amharic into Latin script. The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specialising in Ethiopian Semitic languages.