AMHARIC: a language of Ethiopia

The following is the entry for this language as it appeared in the 14th edition (2000).
It was superseded by the corresponding entry in the 15th edition (2005). See also the corresponding entry in the current edition of Ethnologue.

SIL code: AMH

ISO 639-1: am

ISO 639-2: amh

Population	17,372,913 mother tongue speakers, 5,104,150 second language users, 16,007,933 in the ethnic group, 14,743,556 monolinguals in Ethiopia, (1998 census). Population total all countries 17,413,000 or more. 21,000,000 including second language users (1999 WA).
Region	North central Ethiopia, Amhara Region, and in Addis Ababa. Also spoken in Egypt, Israel, Sweden.
Alternate names	ABYSSINIAN, ETHIOPIAN, AMARINYA, AMARIGNA
Classification	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, South, Ethiopian, South, Transversal, Amharic-Argobba.
Comments	Bilingualism in English, Arabic, Oromo, Tigrinya. Used in government, public media, national business, education to seventh grade in many areas, wide variety of literature (fiction, poetry, plays, magazines). People have suffered from recent famines. National language. Dictionary. Grammar. SOV, prepositions, postpositions, genitives, articles, and relatives precede noun heads, question word initial, case affixes, verb suffixes show person, number, gender of subject and (optionally) object, passives including deponents, causatives, CV, CVC, V, CVCC. Literacy rate in first language: 28.1%. Literacy rate in second language: 28.1%. Radio programs, TV. Christian, Jewish. Bible 1840-1988.

Also spoken in:

Israel

Language name	AMHARIC
Population	40,000 in Israel (1994 H. Mutzafi).
Comments	Bilingualism in Hebrew. Spoken by Jews of Ethiopian origin. They call themselves 'Beta Israel', and consider 'Falasha' pejorative. Radio programs. Jewish. Bible 1840-1988. See main entry under Ethiopia.