Amharic

Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is part of the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is mainly spoken by the Amhara people as their first language. It also helps many different groups of people in Ethiopian cities to communicate, acting as a lingua franca.

Amharic is very important because it is the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government and several of Ethiopia's federal regions. Many millions of people in Ethiopia understand or speak Amharic, making it the most widely used language there.

Amharic is written from left to right using a special writing system that came from the ancient Geʽez script. This writing system is called an abugida (አቡጊዳ), where each symbol shows a combination of a consonant and a vowel. The symbols used in this script are called fidäl (ፊደል), meaning 'script, alphabet, letter, character'. Linguists sometimes use the Latin alphabet to study the language.

Dialects

Amharic has many dialects, and they are all easy to understand each other. One special dialect is called Jewish Amharic, used by the Beta Israel people who now live mostly in Israel. In this dialect, some phrases are changed to fit Jewish traditions. For example, instead of a Christian phrase used to congratulate a mother after having a baby, they use a different phrase that thanks God. This dialect also includes some words from Modern Hebrew because many Beta Israel live in Israel. However, Jewish Amharic is gradually being replaced by Hebrew.

History

Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia since the late 1200s. It was used in courts, trade, and daily life. The Amhara nobles helped make Amharic important, and it became known as the "tongue of the king." Today, Amharic is one of the official languages of Ethiopia, along with others like Oromo, Somali, Afar, and Tigrinya.

Amharic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family and is related to Geʽez, the ancient liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church. It uses a special alphabet derived from Geʽez, with 34 basic characters and many more sounds. Until 2020, Amharic was the only official language of Ethiopia. Today, it is spoken by millions of people both inside and outside Ethiopia. Many Ethiopian Jewish communities and followers of the Rastafari religion also use Amharic.

Phonology

Amharic has special sounds called ejective consonants. These sounds come from ancient language roots. In writing, these sounds are shown with a dot below the letter.

The language also changes how some sounds are said based on where they are in a word. For example, the sound /b/ can sound softer when it is between other sounds. There are also a few ways to say sounds like /sʼ/. Vowel sounds can change a little depending on the letters around them.

Writing system

See also: Geʽez script and Amharic Braille

The Amharic script is a special way of writing. Each symbol shows a consonant and a vowel together. It comes from an older writing system called the Geʽez script. Some sounds have more than one symbol, but readers can usually understand the differences.

In Amharic, how long a consonant is can change the meaning of a word. But this length is not shown in the writing. It’s like how some languages don’t write down certain vowel sounds.

Grammar

Amharic uses a subject and a predicate to make simple sentences. For example, "Ethiopia is in Africa" or "The boy is asleep." Amharic shows differences in people, numbers, and genders. This is seen in personal pronouns and how verbs change.

Amharic verbs change their shape based on who the subject is, how many, and their gender. There are special endings for objects, and nouns can show ownership with endings too. The language has special ways to make adjectives and show ownership without using a verb like "to have."

Literature

See also: Amharas § Culture, and List of Amharic writers

Amharic has a rich literary tradition. Famous writers include Baalu Girma, known for novels like The End, and Haddis Alemayehu. The oldest written Amharic pieces are poems called "የወታደሮች መዝሙር" (Soldier songs) made to honor kings and soldiers. Today, Amharic literature includes many kinds of books—government documents, school textbooks, religious texts, novels, poetry, proverb collections, dictionaries, and technical guides. The Bible was translated into Amharic in the 1800s by Abu Rumi. One well-known Amharic novel is Fiqir Iske Meqabir by Haddis Alemayehu. Other important authors are Baalu Girma, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, and Kebede Michael.

Rastafari movement

The word Rastafari comes from Ras Täfäri, a special title for Haile Selassie. It is made from Amharic words. Many Rastafarians learn Amharic because they think it is sacred. After Haile Selassie visited Jamaica in 1966, people there started learning Amharic to learn more about African identity and culture.

Some reggae musicians, like Ras Michael, Lincoln Thompson, and Misty in Roots, have sung in Amharic. The group The Abyssinians used Amharic in songs such as "Satta Massagana". In the Rastafari dialect called Iyaric, the word satta means 'to sit down and partake'.

Software

Amharic works on most big Linux systems, like Fedora and Ubuntu. The Amharic letters are part of Unicode in the Ethiopic block. Windows 7 and Vista have a font called Nyala that helps show Amharic words.

Google let people type Amharic online through its Language Tools, so you don’t need a special keyboard. Since 2004, Wikipedia has an Amharic version that uses Ethiopic letters. People have made good tools to search and find Amharic information.