Ethiopian Semitic languages

Ethiopian Semitic (also called Ethio-Semitic, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic or AbyssinianIgor Mikhailovich Diakonov Semito-Hamitic Languages: An Essay in Classification - Google Books": Nauka, Central Department of Oriental Literature, (1965) pp 12) is a family of languages. These languages are spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. They are a part of the South Semitic languages.

Amharic is the most used Ethiopian Semitic language. It is the official working language of Ethiopia and has about 62 million speakers (including second language speakers). Tigrinya has 7 million speakers and is the most spoken language in Eritrea. The Ge'ez language is a religious language that is used in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches. There is writing in this language that is as old as the first century AD. It is no longer spoken in daily life.

The modern Ethiopian Semitic languages all have the subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. Ge'ez had the verb-subject-object (VSO) order.

Classification
Grover Hudson (2013) says that there are five main branches of Ethiosemitic. This classification is given below.
Ethiosemitic
North
Ge'ez
Tigre–Tigrinya
Gafat
Soddo–Mesqan–Gurage
Soddo
Mesqan–Gurage
Mesqan
Gurage
Muher
Chaha–Inor
Silt'e–Zay–Harari
Harari
Silt'e, Zay
Argobba–Amharic

References

References
Cohen, Marcel. 1931. Études d’éthiopien méridional. Paris.
Hetzron, Robert. 1972. Ethiopian Semitic: studies in classification. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Weninger, Stefan. Vom Altäthiopischen zu den neuäthiopischen Sprachen. Language Typology and Language Universals. Edited by Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher, Wolfgang Raible, Vol. 2: 1762-1774. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Category:Semitic languages