Tuesday, April 1, 2014

A is for Amharic

Amharic is the main language of Ethiopia. It's not the only language spoken in country, many regions, and even zones down in Southern Nations, have their own, but Amharic is the only one taught to every child.

It's not an easy language. There's some sort of chart out there in the world that describes a language as a level 1-5 depending on how easy it is to learn from the standpoint of English as your native language. Japanese is a 5. Amharic is a 4.

I like to think of it at Yoda speech, the grammar is rather similar – verbs at the end.

Despite being in the Oromia region, and having Afan Oromo/Oromifa as the official language, Huruta citizens speak mainly Amharic. All the paperwork however, is Oromifa. I just get people to translate for me. XD Many people have a knowledge of both languages here in town.

6 comments:

Ann Hinds said...

My knowledge of Ethiopia wouldn't fill a thimble so I will be following this on the A to Z. It's time to broaden my horizons.

Sukanya said...

Wow! I love learning languages but I am not going to try and learn Amharic! Good luck with the A to Z Challenge. I'm taking part as well!

Tam@Travellingbookjunkie said...

I don't think I would be any good at Amharic! Languages, whilst I always try to speak them when travelling, I always sound awful and people give me that look that says 'I have no idea what you are talking about'!. Great to know about other countries and their languages though :)

Anonymous said...

Interesting post. Apart from taking French in High School, I have to say my ability to learn new languages is atrocious! It's one thing I wish I could do, but sadly, never destined to be. :(

Jessica Marcarelli said...

I love languages and learning about ones I didn't even know about in the first place. Amharic would be one of those latter ones. Thanks for lending some info on it!

-Jessica
An A to Z Blogger
Visions of Other Worlds
Twitter: @jmarcarelli
#atozchallenge

Corinne said...

I am looking forward to your posts, I need to book a trip to Ethiopia.

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