Afar is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch, primarily spoken by the

Afar people The Afar (), also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern co ...

, native to parts of Djibouti,

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. It is an

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

in Ethiopia; and a national language in Djibouti and Eritrea. Afar is officially written in the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a 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 Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

and has over 2.6 million speakers.

Classification

Afar is classified within the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. It is further categorized in the Lowland East Cushitic sub-group, along with Saho and Somali. Its closest relative is the Saho language.

Geographic distribution

The Afar language is spoken as a mother tongue by the

in Djibouti,

, and the Afar Region of

. According to '' Ethnologue'', there are total Afar speakers. Of these, 1,280,000 were recorded in the 2007 Ethiopian census, with 906,000 monolinguals registered in the 1994 census. Languages_of_Ethiopia_piechart

Official status

In Djibouti, Afar is a recognized national language. It is also one of the broadcasting languages of the Radio Television of Djibouti public network. In Eritrea, Afar is recognized as one of nine national languages which formally enjoy equal status although Tigrinya and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

are by far of greatest significance in official usage. There are daily broadcasts on the national radio and a translated version of the Eritrean constitution. In education, however, Afar speakers prefer Arabic – which many of them speak as a second language – as the language of instruction. In the Afar Region of Ethiopia, Afar is also recognized as an official working language. Since 2020, Afar is one of the five official working languages of Ethiopia.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of the Afar language in the standard orthography are listed below in angle brackets (preceded by the IPA notation): Voiceless stop consonants which close syllables are released, e.g., .

Vowels and stress

Sentence final vowels of affirmative verbs are aspirated (and stressed), e.g. * = 'He did.' Sentence final vowels of negative verbs are not aspirated (nor stressed), e.g. * = 'He did not do.' Sentence final vowels of interrogative verbs are lengthened (and stressed), e.g. * = 'Did he do?' Otherwise, stress in word-final.

Phonotactics

Possible syllable shapes are V, VV, VC, VVC, CV, CVV and CVVC.

Syntax

As in most other Cushitic languages, the basic word order in Afar is subject–object–verb.

Writing system

In Ethiopia, Afar used to be written with the Ge'ez script (Ethiopic script). Since around 1849, the

has been used in other areas to transcribe the language. Additionally, Afar is also transcribed using the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

. In the early 1970s, two Afar intellectuals and nationalists, Dimis and Redo, formalized the Afar alphabet. Known as ''Qafar Feera'', the orthography is based on the Latin script. Officials from the Institut des Langues de Djibouti, the Eritrean Ministry of Education, and the Ethiopian Afar Language Studies and Enrichment Center have since worked with Afar linguists, authors and community representatives to select a standard orthography for Afar from among the various existing writing systems used to transcribe the language.

Latin alphabet

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *

External links

* World Atlas of Language Structures information o
Qafar

Afar language learning web site
(Much information about Afar, in English and French)

{{Authority control Afar people East Cushitic languages Subject–object–verb languages Languages of Djibouti Languages of Eritrea Languages of Ethiopia