Talk:Languages of Ethiopia

Italian

Do Ethiopian people speak also Italian?

Only those who went to the Italian scholl in Addis Ababa, and those who learnt it between 1936 and 1941. Driss 14:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

What percent speak Italian at A1 or better?  Source? 伟思礼 (talk) 16:45, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Not sure why some editors see Italian as a relevant language in this article. If there are Ethiopians speaking Italian, they would be old and counted in dozens, not thousands. It is no longer a language to be included in this article. Pete unseth (talk) 18:08, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Dullay

Should the Dullay language group (under East Cushitic languages) be added to the article? Badagnani 08:29, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not? It's an Ethiopian language! Driss 14:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

arabic

i find it most strange that any form of arabic doesn't have any relevant presence at all in the whole country. Mostly considering that a third of its population is reputed to be muslim and seen the fact that it's almost entirely surrounded by political units which grant arabic at least an oficial status. Can anyone provide any reliable information on this subject? antónio--91.117.77.73 (talk) 01:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

That probably depends on what you consider to be relevant presence. There are certainly many second-language speakers of Arabic in Ethiopia. These live mostly in the far West of the country, where there are strong ties to the Sudan. Some cross-border ethnic groups like the Berta or Komo people would fit into this category. Then certainly some people may have learned Arabic to some degree because of their religious functions, but this would probably be a rather passive knowledge. Apart from a few foreign passport holders from Arabic countries I would not expect to find any Arabic mother tongue speakers in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, there are (to my knowledge) no sources giving any information on the use of Arabic in Ethiopia. The census (published in 1998) did not collect information on Arabic as first or second language, and I suspect that also the 2007 census data will not give us any information on this. Anyway, given that Arabic only plays a limited role as a second language for some people in Ethiopia, I would not include it in this entry. Arabic did not originate in Ethiopia (unlike Ge'ez, another language only used as second language). Listing Arabic here would be like listing Latin in any country with a sizeable Catholic Church presence. That would not be very helpful. Landroving Linguist (talk) 17:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think comparing Arabic and Latin in this case makes sense, as Latin is extinct but Arabic is not. I understand that obtaining stats about Arabic speakers in Ethiopia is not easy, but I do think Arabic should at least be mentioned.89.206.227.99 (talk) 15:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a matter of perspective. The Classical Arabic, which most users with a religious background would know in Ethiopia, is from a language use perspective as dead as Latin - or as alive. It is a different matter with Sudanese Arabic, which is used as a second language by various speakers in Western Ethiopia. That, of course, is very much a living language. So maybe it would make sense to mention Sudanese Arabic on this page. Trouble is, I am not aware of any published sources. Landroving Linguist (talk) 14:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what languages in Ethiopia are thought of as being "derived" from Arabic, such as the comments below under the "French?" section. I know of no languages that are descended from Arabic in Ethiopia. Arabic is used in Ethiopia in only very limited circumstances, and used with understanding by a very small number of people.Pete unseth (talk) 13:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

French?

Can the editor that suggested French to be a major foreign language of Ethiopia (in the infobox) explain what prompted him/her to do so? I would maintain that French has no standing whatsoever in Ethiopia, certainly less than Arabic, for example. If you want this claim preserved in the article, you will need to provide a source which supports this claim. Whithout such support, I will delete the claim soonish. Landroving Linguist (talk) 19:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

That's a good call. When I came to this article, I looked for Italian as a "main language", but having been to Ethiopia two times, I realize that it is mainly the families of the Italians who immigrated to Ethiopia back around the mid-20th century who speak Italian. A few Ethiopians speak Italian, but by far, the two main languages are Amharic (and perhaps other Arabic derivatives) and English. Many who were born into other languages can also speak Amharic and English as "second" languages.

This does make me ask, though, why is Arabic listed as a main language? Modern Arabic is not spoken widely in Ethiopia, even though most of the languages there are Arabic-derived. The two "main languages" really should be Amharic and English. These are the most widely spoken languages in Ethiopia.

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  21:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

CIA World Book

An editor changed the bar graph about the biggest Ethiopian languages according to information given in the CIA World Fact Book. I laud the intention to add a reliable source to so far unsourced information, and I would certainly affirm that the CIA World Book is normally a reliable source. But it has this egregious error in there about the Opuuo language covering 1.2 % of the Ethiopian population. I have no idea how that 'fact' got in there, as they cite no sources, but with the current population of almost 100 million in Ethiopia this would add up to at least a million speakers for a language that all reliable secondary sources place at 5000 speakers. There is a zero chance that the CIA got this one right against the odds, as I have an Opuuo speaker sitting right next to me this very minute, and he was wildly amused by this information and also placed the speaker number of his language at 5000. What should we do in such a situation? For now I deleted that line, but of course it ruins the total of the percentages. Landroving Linguist (talk) 07:17, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

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Italian language

Over the past few months, several possibly identical editors attempted to establish Italian as a main foreign language in the lead info box of this article. This attempt started out as a good-faith edit, but when it got reverted a couple of times, the respective editor(s) became increasingly disruptive in their editing, also insulting other editors in their edit summaries. Needless to say, such behaviour is not acceptable and will eventually lead to consequences. Before this happens, I first attempt to bring this to a proper discussion here on the talk page.

Now, it is doubtlessly true that Italian has been a foreign language of great importance for Ethiopia, because Italy occupied Ethiopia between 1936 and 1941, and even before that time, because of the close neighborhood and cultural proximity of the Italian colony of Eritrea. The Italian language had a significant influence on Ethiopian languages such as Amharic, which inherited a lot of its technical vocabulary from Italian. But since 1941, the situation has changed significantly, to the point that practically no-one in Ethiopia speaks Italian as a first language, and there is no pressing need for a significant part of the population to learn Italian as a second language. Italian has found its place together with French, German, Arabic or Chinese as a language that some Ethiopians choose to learn as a second language in order to pursue personal goals; it is not longer a main foreign language of Ethiopia, such as English, which serves as the medium of instruction of all secondary and tertiary education, and in which all federal laws are published alongside Amharic. More to the point for Wikipedia, there appears to be no reliable secondary source that supports the claim that Italian is a main foreign language in Ethiopia, and any such claim in this article will have to be supported by such a source. Therefore, no matter how obstinately any editor re-inserts that claim in the info box, it will have to be reverted again and again, because it is not in line with the rules of Wikipedia. If you feel that there is anything more to say to this matter beyond insulting other editors, this talk page is the place to do this. If you really have nothing substantial to add, it will be better to refrain from making these edits, because they will be reverted as soon as you have made them. Landroving Linguist (talk) 10:57, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree heartily with LL. In nine years in Addis Ababa, I heard conversations in Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, German, Swedish --- but only one in Italian, and that was only the greetings between older people. They then switched to English. Italian was, but is no longer, a main foreign language in Ethiopia. Pete unseth (talk) 13:36, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Fix it up lads (xd)

Italian's spoken but downy boys keep removing it It'll stay Itspokenmonkey (talk) 06:23, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

There is no official national language of Ethiopia except on wikipedia.

Constitution states working language of Federal gov't, which is Amharic and give authority to the regions to decide. And Amharic is not recognised in regions such as Oromia, Tigria, Somali and Afar. So How can we decide it is the national language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maammee (talk • contribs) 09:39, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, that makes it the official language of the whole federation, according to most people's definition of an official language. All federal laws are published in Amharic and English, and as such also passed down to the named regional states. Since they accept being handed the laws in Amharic, it is not correct to say that Amharic is not recognized there - it is the language of the federal level, although it may not serve many other official purposes. Landroving Linguist (talk) 20:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Amharic native speakers number

There are two different numbers given for the number of native speakers of Amharic. One is given in the info box over 31,000,000. In the text, there is a place where it is stated as something over 21,000,000. This last number is sourced from the 2007 census. I will wait for somebody to carefully examine the sources and then edit the article. Pete unseth (talk) 19:56, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

 Done LandLing 20:48, 21 July 2021 (UTC)