amharíska

Amharic is a Semitic language in the Ethio-Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, spoken mainly in Ethiopia. It serves as the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and acts as a lingua franca in many urban and interethnic contexts. It is also spoken by Ethiopian communities abroad.

The language is written with the Ge'ez script, also called Fidel, an abugida where each symbol represents a consonant with a vowel modification. Amharic uses a set of seven vowel qualities, and the same fidel is used for several languages of the region, including Tigrinya and Ge'ez (liturgical).

Estimates of speakers vary, but Amharic is the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia by number of native speakers, with tens of millions of speakers overall when including second-language users. It is also spoken in diaspora communities in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Historically, Amharic emerged as a vernacular in the Ethiopian highlands and later became the prestige language of successive Ethiopian polities. By the modern era it had become the main language of administration, education, and media, and it remains a primary vehicle of Ethiopian national discourse.

Linguistically, Amharic is SOV (subject–object–verb) and features a rich verbal system with aspect and mood markers, noun cases, and definite/indefinite marking. Its vocabulary shows borrowings from Arabic, Oromo, and other languages, reflecting Ethiopia’s historic trade and cultural contacts.