Ethiopia Languages


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Description

There are 90 individual languages spoken in Ethiopia. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the following. [1]

Together, these four groups make up about three-quarters of Ethiopia's population. [2]

Other Afroasiatic lanquauges with a significant number of speakers include...[3]

English is the most spoken foreign language and is used in schools and federal laws. [4]

Languages of Ethiopia
as of 2007 Census
Language Percentage

of Population

Oromo 33.8%
Amharic 29.3%
Somali 6.3%
Tigrinya 5.9%
Sidamo 4.0%
Wolaytta 2.2%
Gurage 2.0%
Afar 1.7%
Hadiyya 1.7%
Gamo-Gofa-Dawro 1.5%
Others 11.6%

Word List(s)

Alphabet and Pronunciation

Alphabet

Pronunciation

Language Aids and Dictionaries

Dictionaries'

  • Muudee, Mahdi Hamid. Hamid Muudee's Oromo dictionary : English-Oromo. Atlanta, GA: Sagalee Oromoo Pub. Co., 1995. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Hashi, Abdirahman A. Fiqi's Somali English dictionary. Jigjiga, Ethiopia: Fiqi Educational Materials, 1998. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Leslau, Wolf. Concise Amharic dictionary : Amharic-English, English-Amharic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Asfeha, Amanuel. Mesob English Tigrinya dictionary. n.p.: n.p., 2015. Available at: WorldCat.

Online Dictionaries

Language Aids

Additional Resources

References

  1. Wikipedia contributors, "Ethiopia," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Languages#:~:text=there%20are%2090%20individual%20languages%20spoken%20in%20Ethiopia., accessed 8 Sep 2021.
  2. Wikipedia contributors, "Ethiopia," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Languages#:~:text=Together%2C%20these%20four%20groups%20make%20up%20about%20three-quarters%20of%20Ethiopia's%20population., accessed 8 Sep 2021.
  3. Wikipedia contributors, "Ethiopia," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Languages, accessed 25 Oct 2021.
  4. Wikipedia contributors, "Ethiopia," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Languages#:~:text=English%20is%20the%20most%20widely%20spoken%20foreign%20language, accessed 25 Oct 2021.