Amharic

Story

Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language of the Afroasiatic family and has served as the working language of the Ethiopian royal court and government since at least the late 12th century, earning it the historic title 'Lisane Negus', meaning tongue of the king. It is the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic, with around 60 million total speakers. Amharic is written in the Ge'ez abugida, called Fidel, an ancient script descended from South Arabian inscriptions of the 9th century BCE, in which each symbol represents a consonant-vowel syllable combination, giving the alphabet around 280 distinct characters. The language holds a uniquely global cultural reach beyond the Horn of Africa: it is considered sacred by the Rastafari movement worldwide, and in Washington, D.C., it is one of only six non-English languages granted government service rights under the 2004 Language Access Act.

At a glance

• Also known as: አማርኛ
• Family: Afroasiatic
• Region: Horn of Africa
• Speakers: 60M (total speakers (l1 plus l2) estimated; approximately 35 million l1 and 25 million l2 speakers (2019 to 2020 figures))
• Writing system: Ge'ez script (Ethiopic abugida, called Fidel)
• Greeting: ሰላም (Selam) (peace / hello)

Spoken in

Ethiopia, Eritrea, Israel, United States

Common questions