Afro-Asiatic · ISO 639-3 amh · am
Amharic Language አማርኛ
Amharic is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by about 36 million people in 2 countries. It is an official language of Ethiopia. It is written in the Ethiopic and Latin scripts.
Where Amharic is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Language family
- Afro-Asiatic
- Semitic
- West Semitic
- Ethiosemitic
- South Ethiopic
- Amharic-Argobba
- Amharic
Writing system
Ethiopic and Latin scripts
Related languages
About the Amharic language
Amharic (አማርኛ) is spoken by about 36 million people, which makes it the 48th most spoken language in the world — just behind Sudanese Arabic (37 million) and ahead of Burmese (36 million). It belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family and, more precisely, to the Amharic-Argobba group within the West Semitic branch.
Where is Amharic spoken?
Amharic is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Ethiopia (39 million) and Israel (55,475).
Share of the population that speaks Amharic: Ethiopia 33% (39 million) and Israel 0.6% (55,475).
Amharic is an official language in 1 country: Ethiopia.
Writing system and status
Amharic is written in the Ethiopic and Latin scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Sebat Bet Gurage, Tigrinya, Tigre, Arabic, Standard Arabic, Egyptian Arabic and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 am, ISO 639-3 amh.
Frequently asked questions about Amharic
How many people speak Amharic?
Where is Amharic spoken?
In which countries is Amharic an official language?
What language family does Amharic belong to?
What is Amharic called in Amharic?
Is Amharic an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.