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The Afroasiatic languages, also known as Hamito-Semitic or Semito-Hamitic, are a language family of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic branch.
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, and Sidama.
The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Geʽez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have complex tonal systems. The languages have around 6.2 million speakers. The group is generally classified as belonging to the Afroasiatic language family, but this is disputed by some.
Afar is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken by the Afar people inhabiting Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Ongota is a moribund language of southwest Ethiopia. UNESCO reported in 2012 that out of a total ethnic population of 115, only 12 elderly native speakers remained, the rest of their small village on the west bank of the Weito River having adopted the Tsamai language instead. The default word order is subject–object–verb. The classification of the language is obscure.
Weyto is a speculative extinct language thought to have been spoken in the Lake Tana region of Ethiopia by the Weyto, a small group of hippopotamus hunters who now speak Amharic.
The Agaw or Central Cushitic languages are Afro-Asiatic languages spoken by several groups in Ethiopia and, in one case, Eritrea. They form the main substratum influence on Amharic and other Ethiopian Semitic languages.
Kayliñña is one of two Agaw languages formerly spoken by a subgroup of the Beta Israel. It is a dialect of Qimant. The name Kayla (ካይላ) is sometimes also used as a cover term for both Beta Israel dialects. It is known only from unpublished notes by Jacques Faitlovitch written in the Ge'ez script, recently studied by David Appleyard. It is preserved by the Beta Israel today.
Robert Hetzron, born Herzog, was a Hungarian-born linguist known for his work on the comparative study of Afro-Asiatic languages, as well as for his study of Cushitic and Ethiopian Semitic languages.
Prof. Olga Kapeliuk is an Israeli linguist.
The languages of Ethiopia include the official languages of Ethiopia, its national and regional languages, and a large number of minority languages, as well as foreign languages.
Edward Ullendorff was a British scholar of Semitic languages and Ethiopian studies.
The Awngi language, in older publications also called Awiya, is a Central Cushitic language spoken by the Awi people, living in Central Gojjam in northwestern Ethiopia.
The Awi people are an ethnic group in Ethiopia and are one of the Agaw peoples. The Awi live in Agew Awi Zone west of Mirab Gojjam and have a few communities in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region.
Marvin Lionel Bender was an American linguist.
The Qimant language is a highly endangered language spoken by a small and elderly fraction of the Qemant people in northern Ethiopia, mainly in the Chilga woreda in Semien Gondar Zone between Gondar and Metemma.
Dizin is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by the Dizi people, primarily in the Maji woreda of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, located in southwestern Ethiopia. The 2007 census listed 33,927 speakers. A population of 17,583 was identified as monolinguals in 1994.
The Proto-Afroasiatic homeland is the hypothetical place where speakers of the Proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. Afroasiatic languages are today mostly distributed in parts of Africa, and Western Asia.
Frank Robert Palmer was a British linguist who was instrumental in the development of the Department of Linguistic Science at the University of Reading.
Grover M. Hudson was an American linguist and Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at Michigan State University. He was known for his works on the Amharic language.
