EthioSemitic

Ethio-Semitic is a branch of the Semitic languages within the Afroasiatic language family, spoken primarily in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It includes Ge'ez, a classical language that remains the liturgical language of Ethiopian and Eritrean churches, as well as several modern languages such as Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, and a group of Gurage languages.

Today, Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia and a widely used lingua franca, while Tigrinya is spoken in Eritrea and in parts of northern Ethiopia. Ge'ez is no longer used for daily communication but survives as a liturgical language. Gurage languages form a cluster of related languages spoken mainly in southern Ethiopia, representing a significant part of Ethio-Semitic speech communities. Together, Ethio-Semitic languages are characterized by large regional variation in dialects and scripts, with many speakers bilingual in other local languages.

The writing system most closely associated with Ethio-Semitic languages is the Ge'ez script, also known as the Ethiopic script. It is an abugida in which each symbol represents a consonant-vowel syllable. The script was historically used to write Ge'ez and was later adapted for Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Gurage languages, and several others. It remains a defining feature of Ethio-Semitic linguistic identity and literacy.

Classification within Ethio-Semitic is commonly presented as a Northern branch (Ge'ez, Tigrinya, Tigre) and a Southern branch (Amharic and many Gurage languages), though exact subgrouping varies among linguists. Ethio-Semitic languages exhibit characteristic Semitic features such as tri-consonantal roots, rich verb morphology, and the presence of ejective consonants, alongside unique developments shaped by contact with Cushitic languages in the Horn of Africa.