Ethiopia Most Spoken Languages

The first languages and the largest are the Oromo with about 24,930,424 of the population speaking the language which is equivalent to 33.8% and the Amharic with 21,634,396 users which is equivalent to 29.3% of the country’s population. Other widely spoken languages in Ethiopia include Somali with 4,609,274 of the total population which is equivalent to 6.25%, Tigrinya with 4,324,476 equivalent to 5.86%, Sidamo with 2,981,471 equivalent to 4.84%, Wolaytta with 1,627,784 equivalent to 2.21%, Gurage with 1,481,783 equivalent to 2.01%, and Afar with 1,281,278 equivalent to 1.74%. Amharic is the second most spoken language in Ethiopia, and it is the official language in which all federal laws are published.

Languages, such as Mesmes, Gafat, and Weyto are victims of language death. Many of the languages have not been spoken in two generations making them prone to extinction. The Ongota language is the next in line at the brink of extinction. Language death is attributed to complex factors which are not as easy to determine or predict. Therefore, it is almost impossible to pinpoint which language exactly is most prone to go extinct. With the assumption that a language in Ethiopia with less than 10,000 speakers is most likely to become extinct or endangered, about 22 languages are on the list as endangered. However, the exact number of languages either facing extinction or endangered may be low or high.

Following the fall of the Derg in 1991, the Ethiopian Constitution of 1995 allowed all ethnic groups within the country the right to establish first language primary education systems and develop their various languages. The decision marked a change to language policies put in place by the country’s previous governments. The Ge’ez script is the principal orthography used in Ethiopia in regards to writing systems. Despite other methods of writing being used by different communities in the country over the years, Ge’ez is the current liturgical language of both the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo and the Ethiopian Churches.

Written by: Benjamin Elisha Sawe