Ethiopian Semitic languages


Ethiopian Semitic is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages, itself a sub-branch of Semitic, part of the Afroasiatic language family.
Amharic, the official working language of Federal Government of Ethiopia and Amhara Region, has about 62 million speakers and is the most widely spoken Ethiopian Semitic language. Tigrinya has 7 million speakers and is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea. There is a small population of Tigre speakers in Sudan. The Ge'ez language has a literary history in its own Ge'ez script going back to the first century AD. It is no longer spoken but remains the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, as well as their respective Eastern Catholic counterparts.
The "homeland" of the South Semitic languages is widely debated, with sources such as A. Murtonen and Lionel Bender, suggesting an origin in Ethiopia and others suggesting the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. A study based on a Bayesian model to estimate language change concluded that the latter viewpoint may be more probable.
The modern Ethiopian Semitic languages all share subject–object–verb word order as part of the Ethiopian language area, but Ge'ez had verb-subject-object order in common with other Semitic languages.

Classification

The division into northern and southern branches was established by Cohen and Hetzron and garnered broad acceptance, but this classification has recently been challenged by Rainer Voigt. Voigt rejects the classification that was put forward by Cohen and Hetzron, concluding that they are too closely related to be grouped separately into a north and south.
Hudson recognises five primary branches of Ethiosemitic. His classification is below.
;Ethiosemitic