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Language code: am

Technical information about ISO 639 language code am

Documentation

The table below provides technical details for the Amharic language, designated by the am code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

am

Name

Official

Amharic

Native

አማርኛ

Family
Semitic
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
GondarGojjamWolloShewa
Related languages
TigrinyaTigreArgobbaHarariGeʽez
Key facts
Written with the Ethiopic (Geʽez) abugidaIt is the second-largest Semitic language by number of speakers after ArabicFeatures ejective consonants and labialized velars uncommon in many Semitic tonguesVerbal morphology marks both subject and object agreementRetains a sizable vocabulary inherited from the classical liturgical language Geʽez alongside modern loanwords
Sample phrase

ሰላም፣ እንደምን አለህ?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Amharic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family of languages, more precisely to the Semitic subgroup. It is officially used in Ethiopia. It is estimated that there are more than 35 million speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

Ethiopia

35M

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Amharic speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

Related locale codes

am-ET – Amharic (Ethiopia)

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