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Amharic

A language of Ethiopia

ISO 639-3: amh

Population	17,400,000 in Ethiopia (1994 census). 14,743,556 monolinguals. Population total all countries: 17,528,500.
Region	North central, Amhara region; Addis Ababa. Also in Djibouti, Egypt, Israel, Sweden, United States.
Language map	Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia, reference number 4
Alternate names	Abyssinian, Amarigna, Amarinya, Ethiopian
Classification	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, South, Ethiopian, South, Transversal, Amharic-Argobba
Language use	National language. 4,000,000 L2 speakers. All domains. Also use English, Arabic [arb], Oromo [hae], or Tigrinya [tir].
Language development	Literacy rate in L1: 28.1%. Literacy rate in L2: 28.1%. Taught in primary schools. Fully developed. Bible: 1840–1988.
Writing system	Ethiopic script.
Comments	People have suffered from recent famines. 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. Christian, Jewish.

Also spoken in:

Israel

Language name	Amharic
Population	40,000 in Israel (1994 H. Mutzafi).
Alternate names	“Falasha”
Language use	Also use Hebrew [heb].
Comments	Spoken by Jews of Ethiopian origin. Jewish.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

Gardner, Simon and Ralph Siebert. 1994. "Second S. L. L. E. survey of the Zay language area."

Gardner, Simon and Ralph Siebert. 2001. "Sociolinguistic survey report of the Zay language area."  

Gutt, Eeva H. M. and Hussein Mohammed, compilers. 1995. Yäsəltʼənä - Amarəna - ənglizəña kʼamus (əncʼər kutab) (Yäsəltʼiña - Amarəna - ənglizəña mäzgäba kʼalat (acʼər ətəm): Siltʼe - Amharic - English dictionary (shorter version)).

Nicolle, Steve. 2000. "Markers of general interpretive use in Amharic and Swahili."

Unseth, Peter Edward. 2002. Bi-consonantal reduplication in Amharic and Ethio-Semitic.

Unseth, Peter. 1988. Review of: Amharic-English Dictionary, by Amsalu Aklilu, compiler.

Unseth, Peter. 2003. "Surveying bi-consonantal reduplication in Semitic."

Unseth, Peter. 2008. "Collecting, using, and enjoying proverbs."  

Wedekind, Anne and Klaus. 1994. "Amharic stress (beat) rules of linguists, poets and singers. Which beat rules beat which?."

Wedekind, Klaus. 1992. "Which form predicts the others best? Variations on the Amharic verb "theme"."

Wedekind, Klaus. 2002. "Sociolinguistic survey report on the Amuru area of Ethiopia."  

Yilma, Aklilu. 2002. "Fast linguistic assessment of multilingualism in Ethiopia (F.L.A.M.E.): a progress report."