The Amharic language is an Afro Asian language and belongs to the Semitic group of languages. The Semitic group of languages includes Arabic, Hebrew and Amharic and also the ancient languages Assyrian-Babylon, Aramaic, Phoenician and Moabite.
Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia since the abolition of the old Ethiopian language (Ge’ez) and is also widely used in neighbouring countries. The Amharic language is named after the Amharic people, who live in the North of Ethiopia.
The Amharic languages has multiple dialects and regional variations. The main dialects are Gondar, Gojiam, Wollo and Shewa. This language region is not very well researched and it is assumed that there good be a wider number of dialects and a more complex classification of the languages.
Amharic was until the 14th Century a relatively unimportant local dialect of the south of Ethiopia. However it became more important as a result of the move of the Royal residence to the south. Originally Amharic was purely a spoken language. After Old Ethiopian died out, the Ge’ez alphabet it used was modified and used for Amharic. Although Amharic is a Semitic language, it is written from left to right and is a syllabic language. The vowels are depicted by annotating consonants. The pronunciation of Amharic is however quite distinct from other Semitic languages.
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