The languages of

Djibouti Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...

include Afar,

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, Somali and

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

. Somali and Afar are the most widely spoken tongues, and Arabic and French serve as the official languages.

Languages

Djibouti is a

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

country. According to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'', the majority of the population speaks Somali (524,000 speakers) or Afar (306,000 speakers) as a first language, which are the

mother tongue A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

s of the Somali and Afar ethnic groups, respectively. Both languages belong to the larger

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

family. Northern Somali is the main dialect spoken in the country and neighbouring

Somaliland Somaliland,; ar, صوماليلاند ', ' officially the Republic of Somaliland,, ar, جمهورية صوماليلاند, link=no ''Jumhūrīyat Ṣūmālīlānd'' is a ''de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still conside ...

, in contrast to

Benadiri Somali Benadiri Somali also referred to as “Coastal Somali” ( so, Af Reer Xamar) is a dialect of the Somali language. It is primarily spoken by the Benadiri people, who inhabit the southern Banaadir coast of Somalia. Overview Benadiri Somali is spo ...

which is the main dialect spoken in

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

. There are two official languages in Djibouti:

and

. Arabic is of religious importance. In a formal setting, it consists of

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th ...

. Colloquially, about 59,000 local residents speak the Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic dialect, also known as ''Djibouti Arabic''. French was inherited from the colonial period and is the primary language of instruction. About 17,000 Djiboutians speak it as a first language. Immigrant languages include

Omani Arabic Omani Arabic (also known as Omani Hadari Arabic) is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Al Hajar Mountains of Oman and in a few neighboring coastal regions. It is the easternmost Arabic dialect. It was formerly spoken by colonists in Kenya and Tanz ...

(38,900 speakers),

Amharic Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...

(1,400 speakers),

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

(1,000 speakers) and

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

(600 speakers). Additionally, the Somali

deaf community Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

in Djibouti uses the

Somali Sign Language Somali Sign Language (SSL) is a sign language used by the deaf community in Somaliland and Djibouti. In the 1980s a school for the deaf was established in the Somali Kenyan town of Wajir by Annalena Tonelli. Students there became fluent in Ken ...

. The Somali language is regulated by the

Regional Somali Language Academy The Regional Somali Language Academy (RSLA) is an intergovernmental regulating body for the Somali language in the Horn region. As of February 2015, it is based in Djibouti City. Overview On 28 June 2013, the Government of Djibouti, the Federal ...

, an intergovernmental institution established in June 2013 in

Djibouti City Djibouti (also called Djibouti City and in many early English texts and on many early maps, Jibuti; so, Magaalada Jabuuti, french: link=no, Ville de Djibouti, ar, مدينة جيبوتي, aa, Gabuutî Magaala) is the eponymous capital of Dji ...

by the governments of Djibouti,

and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

. It is officially mandated with preserving the Somali language.

Writing system

Nationally, the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

is the most widely used orthography for all languages. The

Somali alphabet A number of writing systems have been used to transcribe the Somali language. Of these, the Somali Latin alphabet is the most widely used. It has been the official writing script in Somalia since the Supreme Revolutionary Council formally introd ...

, a modified form of the script, is used to write Somali. In the early 1970s, two Afar intellectuals and nationalists, Dimis and Redo, formalized a similar Afar alphabet. Known as ''Qafar Feera'', the orthography is also based on the Latin script. Additionally, Somali and Afar are transcribed using the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...

Notes

References

''Ethnologue'', "Languages of Djibouti"
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