Amharic language courses
Studying Amharic at SOAS Language Centre
Amharic is one of the very few African languages that has been taught continuously at SOAS University of London since its foundation in 1916.
It is believed that Amharic has been spoken since the 9th century A.D. and was made the national language of Ethiopia from the 14th century, until it was renamed as the official working language of Ethiopia in 1995, in line with the ethnic federalist constitution of the country. (Most recently, the Federal Government of Ethiopia has also recognised Oromo, Tigrayan, Afar and Somali languages as official working languages of Ethiopia, in addition to Amharic, bringing the total number of working languages to five).
Amharic is the native language of the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia (close second to Oromo), the Amhara’s of northern Ethiopia and is spoken by millions all over the country as an additional language with varying degrees of proficiency.
Linguistically, Amharic belongs to the Semitic language family, a group that includes Arabic and Hebrew amongst others. In terms of numbers, Amharic is the second most widely spoken semitic language only second to Arabic. Other semitic languages that are spoken in Ethiopia are Tigrinya, Tïgre, and Agäw (in the North), Guraghe (central Ethiopia) and Harari (Eastern Ethiopia), all of which are believed to have evolved from the ancient (and now extinct) Classic Ethiopic, also known as Ge’ez.
Amharic continues to use the traditional writing system of Ge’ez, known as Fidäl, with the addition of a few characters that were not part of the mother language. The Fidäl is syllabic rather than alphabetic; consonants indicate the presence of vowels by making minor modifications to the original 33 syllables (known as ‘First Orders’).
In addition to being widely spoken by millions of Ethiopians, Eritreans, and diasporic communities of the two neighbouring countries, several Universities across Europe, America and Asia are now teaching Amharic either in their Language Centres or as part of their main programmes.
Short course in Amharic
For course dates and information, please see our timetables.
