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The Afroasiatic languages 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, Omotic, and Semitic. 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.
Amharic is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns in Ethiopia.
Oromo, historically also called Galla, which is regarded by the Oromo as pejorative, is an Afroasiatic language that belongs to the Cushitic branch. It is native to the Ethiopian state of Oromia and northern Kenya and is spoken predominantly by the Oromo people and neighboring ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa. It is used as a lingua franca particularly in the Oromia Region and northeastern Kenya.
Beja is an Afroasiatic language of the Cushitic branch spoken on the western coast of the Red Sea by the Beja people. Its speakers inhabit parts of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea. In 2022 there were 2,550,000 Beja speakers in Sudan, and 121,000 Beja speakers in Eritrea according to Ethnologue. As of 2023 there are an estimated 88,000 Beja speakers in Egypt. The total number of speakers in all three countries is 2,759,000.
Bench is a Northern Omotic language of the "Gimojan" subgroup, spoken by about 174,000 people in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira. In a 2006 dissertation, Christian Rapold described three varieties of Bench as "...mutually intelligible...varieties of one and the same language". Bench is the ancestral language of the Bench people.
Argobba is an Ethiopian Semitic language spoken in several districts of Afar, Amhara, and Oromia regions of Ethiopia by the Argobba people. It belongs to the South Ethiopic languages subgroup, and is closely related to Amharic.
Sidama or Sidaamu Afoo is an Afro-Asiatic language belonging to the Highland East Cushitic branch of the Cushitic family. It is spoken in parts of southern Ethiopia by the Sidama people, particularly in the densely populated Sidama National Regional State (SNRS). Sidaamu Afoo is the ethnic autonym for the language, while Sidaminya is its name in Amharic. It is not known to have any specific dialects. The word order is typically SOV. Sidaama has over 100,000 L2 speakers. The literacy rate for L1 speakers is 1%-5%, while for L2 speakers it is 20%. In terms of its writing, Sidaama used an Ethiopic script up until 1993, from which point forward it has used a Latin script.
Libido is an Afroasiatic language of Ethiopia, which is spoken in the Mareko district Gurage Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, directly south-east of Butajira. According to the information of the Central Statistical Authority (2007) census, 59,000 people speak the language as mother tongue.
The Awngi language, in older publications also called Awiya, is a endangered indigenous Central Cushitic language spoken by the Awi people, traditionally living in Central Gojjam in northwestern Ethiopia.
Southern Oromo, or Borana, is a variety of Oromo spoken in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya by the Borana people. Günther Schlee also notes that it is the native language of a number of related peoples, such as the Sakuye.
Burji language is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Burji people who reside in Ethiopia south of Lake Chamo. There are over 49,000 speakers in Ethiopia, and a further 36,900 speakers in Kenya. Burji belongs to the Highland East Cushitic group of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family.
Highland East Cushitic or Burji-Sidamo is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in south-central Ethiopia. They are often grouped with Lowland East Cushitic, Dullay, and Yaaku as East Cushitic. The most popular language is Sidama, with close to two million speakers.
Alaba-Kʼabeena, also known as Wanbasana, is a Highland East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia by the Halaba and Kebena people in the Great Rift Valley southwest of Lake Shala, specifically in Alaba special district, the Kebena district of Gurage Zone, and the Goro district of Oromia Region. The literacy rate of native speakers in their language is below 1%, while their literacy rate in second languages is 8.6%; Alaba-Kʼabeena is taught in primary schools. It has an 81% lexical similarity with Kambaata. However, Fleming (1976) classifies Kʼabeena as a dialect of Kambaata, and Blench (2006) classifies both as dialects of Kambaata. The 2007 census in Ethiopia lists Alaba and Qebena as separate languages.
Kambaata is a Highland East Cushitic language, part of the larger Afro-Asiatic family and spoken by the Kambaata people. Closely related varieties are Xambaaro, Alaba, and Qabeena (K'abeena), of which the latter two are sometimes divided as a separate Alaba language. The language has many verbal affixes. When these are affixed to verbal roots, there are a large amount of morphophonemic changes. The language has subject–object–verb order. The phonemes of Kambaata include five vowels, a set of ejectives, a retroflexed implosive, and glottal stop.
Arbore is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Arbore people in southern Ethiopia in a few settlements of Hamer woreda near Lake Chew Bahir.
Baiso or Bayso is a Lowland East Cushitic language belonging to the Omo–Tana subgroup, and is spoken in Ethiopia, in the region around Lake Abaya.
Toposa is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken in South Sudan by the Toposa people. Mutually intelligible language varieties include Jiye of South Sudan, Nyangatom of Ethiopia, Karimojong, Jie and Dodos of Uganda and Turkana of Kenya. Teso is lexically more distant.
Afitti is a language spoken on the eastern side of Jebel el-Dair, a solitary rock formation in the North Kordofan province of Sudan. Although the term ‘Dinik’ can be used to designate the language regardless of cultural affiliation, people in the villages of the region readily recognize the terms ‘Ditti’ and ‘Afitti.’ There are approximately 4,000 speakers of the Afitti language and its closest linguistic neighbor is the Nyimang language, spoken west of Jebel el-Dair in the Nuba Mountains of the North Kordofan province of Sudan.
Proto-Cushitic is the reconstructed proto-language common ancestor of the Cushitic language family. Its words and roots are not directly attested in any written works, but have been reconstructed through the comparative method, which finds regular similarities between languages not explained by coincidence or word-borrowing, and extrapolates ancient forms from these similarities.
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