Amharic
Amharic, or Amarënya, is the National Language of Ethiopia. Being a Semitic Language of the Afro-Asiatic Language Group, this language is related to Hebrew, Arabic, and Syrian. Aside from this language, Oromo, Tigrinya, Somali and many other languages are spoken by the population of Ethiopia. It is also the official language of the media, government and cross-communication. The origins of the language and its people are traced back to the 1st millenium B.C. It is rumored that they are the descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Immigrants from southwestern Arabia crossed the Red Sea into present-day Eritrea and mixed with the Cushitic population. Thus, new languages formed as a result of this union, e.g., Ge‘ez. Ge‘ez was the classical language of the Axum Empire of Northern Ethiopia. It existed between the 1st Century A.D. and the 6th Century A.D. When the power base of Ethiopia shifted from Axum to Amhara between the 10th Century A.D. and the 12th Century A.D., the use of the Amharic language spread its influence, hence becoming the national language. Amharic is a syllabic language which uses a script which originated from the Ge‘ez alphabet. It has 33 basic characters with each having 7 forms for each consonant-vowel combination. Unlike Arabic, Hebrew or Syrian, the language is written from left to right. The language has different forms of use depending on age and gender. The affix of the 'root word' changes to express differences among age and gender. There is a female form, male form, polite form and informal form. In this page, the polite form is used. Amharic Alphabet Chart
The chart's pronounciation guide is different from that of below. Because there is no official rule on the transliteration of Amharic, different books use different forms of transliteration. The best way to help pronounciation is matching the Amharic Alphabet with the Hebrew, Arabic or Syrian Alphabet. The following is a sample of the similarities of sound/tone with English:
