| Languages of Djibouti | |
|---|---|
 Bilingual sign in French and Arabic at the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport. | |
| Official | Arabic, French |
| Indigenous | Afar, Somali |
| Immigrant | Oromo, Amharic, Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic |
| Foreign | English, Italian |
| Signed | Somali Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
The languages of Djibouti include Afar, Arabic, Somali and French. Somali and Afar are the most widely spoken tongues, and Arabic and French serve as the official languages.
Djibouti is a multilingual country. According to Ethnologue , the majority of the population speaks Somali (524,000 speakers) or Afar (306,000 speakers) as a first language, which are the mother tongues of the Somali and Afar ethnic groups, respectively. Both languages belong to the larger Afro-Asiatic family. [1] Northern Somali is the main dialect spoken in the country and neighbouring Somalia
There are two official languages in Djibouti: Arabic and French. Arabic is of religious importance. In a formal setting, it consists of Modern Standard Arabic. Colloquially, about 59,000 local residents speak the Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic dialect, known in Djibouti as Djiboutian Arabic. French was inherited from the European colonization period and is the primary language of instruction. About 17,000 Djiboutians speak it as a first language. [1]
Immigrant languages include Omani Arabic (38,900 speakers), Amharic (1,400 speakers), Greek (1,000 speakers) and Hindi (600 speakers). [1]
Additionally, the Somali deaf community in Djibouti uses the Somali Sign Language. [2]
The Somali language is regulated by the Regional Somali Language Academy, an intergovernmental institution established in June 2013 in Djibouti City by the governments of Djibouti, Somalia and Ethiopia. It is officially mandated with preserving the Somali language. [3]
Nationally, the Latin script is the most widely used orthography for all languages. The Somali alphabet, a modified form of the script, is used to write Somali. [4] In the early 1970s, two Afar intellectuals and nationalists, Dimis and Redo, formalized a similar Afar alphabet. Known as Qafar Feera, the orthography is also based on the Latin script. [5]
Additionally, Somali and Afar are transcribed using the Arabic script. [4] [6]
Demographic features of Djibouti include population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects.
Most languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. Within Indo-European, the three largest phyla in Europe are Romance, Germanic, and Slavic; they have more than 200 million speakers each and together account for close to 90% of Europeans. Smaller phyla of Indo-European found in Europe include Hellenic, Baltic, Albanian, Celtic, and Armenian ; Indo-Aryan, though a large subfamily of Indo-European, has a relatively small number of speakers in Europe.
Dungan is a Sinitic language spoken primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan by the Dungan people, an ethnic group related to the Hui people of China. Although it is derived from the Central Plains Mandarin of Gansu and Shaanxi, it is written in Cyrillic and contains loanwords and archaisms not found in other modern varieties of Mandarin.
Pakistan is a multilingual country with dozens of languages spoken as first languages. The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.
Afar is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken by the Afar people inhabiting Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Avar, also known as Avaric, is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Avar–Andic subgroup that is spoken by Avars, primarily in Dagestan. In 2010, there were approximately 1 million speakers in Dagestan and elsewhere in Russia.
The culture of the Republic of Djibouti is diverse, due to the nation's Red Sea location at a crossroads of trade and commerce.
Somalisə-MAH-lee, soh- is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken as a mother tongue by Somalis in Greater Somalia and the Somali diaspora. Somali is an official language in Somalia and Ethiopia, and a national language in Djibouti as well as in northeastern Kenya. The Somali language is written officially with the Latin alphabet although the Arabic alphabet and several Somali scripts like Osmanya, Kaddare and the Borama script are informally used.
Djibouti is the eponymous capital of Djibouti. It is located in the coastal Djibouti Region on the Gulf of Tadjoura.
The Saho language is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. It belongs to the family's Cushitic branch.
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.
The main languages spoken in Eritrea are Tigrinya, Tigre, Kunama, Bilen, Nara, Saho, Afar, and Beja. The country's working languages are Tigrinya, Arabic, English, and formerly Italian.
Ghana is a multilingual country in which about eighty languages are spoken. Of these, English, which was inherited from the colonial era, is the official language and lingua franca. Of the languages indigenous to Ghana, Akan is the most widely spoken in the south. Dagbani is most widely spoken in the north.
The endoglossic language of Somalia has always been Somali, although throughout Somalia's history various exoglossic languages have also been used at a national level.
Serer, often broken into differing regional dialects such as Serer-Sine and Serer saloum, is a language of the kingdoms of Sine and Saloum branch of Niger–Congo spoken by 1.2 million people in Senegal and 30,000 in the Gambia as of 2009. It is the principal language of the Serer people.
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world, the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the third-most by number of users.
The writing systems of Africa refer to the current and historical practice of writing systems on the African continent, both indigenous and those introduced.
The Djiboutians are the people inhabiting or originating from Djibouti. The country is mainly composed of two ethnic groups, the Somali and the Afar. It has many languages - though Somali and Afar are the most widely spoken ones, Arabic and French serve as the official languages. There is a small Djiboutian diaspora in North America, Europe, and Australia.
Most people in Somaliland speak at least two of the state's three official languages: Somali, Arabic, and English. Article 6 of the Constitution of 2001 designates the official languages of Somaliland to be Somali and English, though Arabic is a mandatory subject in school and is used in mosques around the region and was later given official status. English is actively spoken and taught in schools.
Tangsa, also known as Tase and Tase Naga, is a Sino-Tibetan language or language cluster spoken by the Tangsa people of Burma and north-eastern India. Some varieties, such as Shangge (Shanke), are likely distinct languages. There are about 60,000 speakers in Burma and 40,000 speakers in India. The dialects of Tangsa have disparate levels of lexical similarity, ranging from 35%–97%.
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