Commonly used and regional languages English is the most widely spoken foreign language, the medium of instruction in secondary schools and all tertiary education; federal laws are also published in British English in the
Federal Negarit Gazeta including the 1995 constitution. Amharic was the language of primary school instruction, but has been replaced in many areas by regional languages such as Oromo, Somali or Tigrinya. While all languages enjoy equal state recognition in the
1995 Constitution of Ethiopia and Oromo is the most populous language by native speakers, Amharic is the most populous by number of total speakers. After the fall of the
Derg in 1991, the
1995 Constitution of Ethiopia granted all ethnic groups the right to develop their languages and to establish
first language primary education systems. This is a marked change to the language policies of previous
governments in Ethiopia.
Oromo language serves as the official working language and the primary language of education in the Oromia,
Harar and
Dire Dawa and of the
Oromia Zone in the
Amhara Region. Somali is the official working language of
Somali Region and
Dire Dawa, while Afar, Harari, and Tigrinya are recognized as official working languages in their respective regions. Recently, the
Ethiopian Government announced that
Afar,
Amharic,
Oromo,
Somali, and
Tigrinya are adopted as official federal working languages of Ethiopia.
Italian is still spoken by some parts of the population, mostly among the older generation, and is taught in some schools (most notably the
Istituto Statale Italiano Omnicomprensivo di Addis Abeba). Amharic and Tigrinya have both borrowed some words from the Italian language.
Writing systems 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 Ethiopic script first came into usage in the sixth and fifth centuries BC as an
abjad to transcribe the Semitic
Ge'ez language. Ge'ez now serves as the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Other writing systems have also been used over the years by different Ethiopian communities. These include Arabic script for writing some Ethiopian languages spoken by Muslim populations and Sheikh
Bakri Sapalo's script for Oromo. Today, many Cushitic, Omotic, and Nilo-Saharan languages are written in Roman/Latin script.
Special status of Amharic Amharic has been the official
working language of Ethiopian courts and its armed forces, trade and everyday communications since the late 12th century. Although now it is only one of the five
official languages of Ethiopia, together with
Oromo,
Somali,
Afar, and
Tigrinya – until 2020 Amharic was the only Ethiopian working language of the federal government. Amharic is the most widely spoken and written language in Ethiopia. As of 2018, Amharic was spoken by 31.8 million native speakers in Ethiopia In
Washington DC, Amharic became one of the six non-English languages in the Language Access Act of 2004, which allows government services and education in Amharic. Furthermore, Amharic is considered a
holy language by the
Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide.
Endangered languages A number of Ethiopian languages are endangered: they may not be spoken in one or two generations and may become extinct, victims of
language death, as
Weyto,
Gafat, and
Mesmes have and Ongota very soon will. The factors that contribute to language death are complex, so it is not easy to estimate which or how many languages are most vulnerable. Hudson wrote, "Assuming that a language with fewer than 10,000 speakers is endangered, or likely to become extinct within a generation", there are 22 endangered languages in Ethiopia (1999:96). However, a number of Ethiopian languages never have had populations even that high, so it is not clear that this is an appropriate way to calculate the number of endangered languages in Ethiopia. The real number may be lower or higher. The new language policies after the 1991 revolution have strengthened the use of a number of languages. Publications specifically about endangered languages in Ethiopia include: Appleyard (1998), Hayward (1988), and Zelealem (1998a,b, 2004) == List of languages ==