Amharic Pronunciation Guide

Amharic (Amarinya or አማሪኛ), is the national language of Ethiopia. It is a Semitic Language which means it is related to Hebrew, Arabic, and Syrian.

Amharic has been the working language of courts, trade, everyday communications, the military, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Ethiopia since the late 12th century.  Amharic grew out of Ge’ez, a language form very similar to Amharic spoken since the 1st century AD.  Ge’ez and Amharic are still used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

With approximately 22 million speakers as of 2007, Amharic is the second-most commonly spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic.

In Washington DC, Amharic became one of the six non-English languages in the Language Access Act of 2004, which allows government services and education in Amharic.  Amharic is also considered a holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide. It is the most widely spoken language in the Horn of Africa.

Pronunciation

What’s really great about Amharic is if you learn the sounds of each Fidel and if you spell or write a word correctly, you will be able to pronounce it.

Amharic Fidel are mostly made up of consonant-vowel combinations, with the exception of 2 sets of letters, አ-A and ዐ-A, which both represent the vowel sounds alone.  Each letter (rows A, B, C, D) has 7 variations that can be grouped into 7 families (columns 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).   Each letter family has a particular vowel sound.  See example below.

Letter Family (column #)	Sound	Example	Exception	Sound File
1 – consonant & e (He, Be, Se, Re)	Short u	hut, cut, but	Ha and A which are in the first letter family but follow the rules of the fourth family.
2 – consonant & u (Hu, Bu, Su, Ru)	Double o (oo)	food, mood, brood
3 – consonant & i (Hi, Bi, Si, Ri)	Long e	bee, see, he
4 – consonant & a (Ha, Ba, Sa, Ra)	ah sound	cha cha, ha ha ha (like you are laughing), mama
5 – consonant & ay (Hay, Bay, Say, Ray)	Long a	day, say, may
6 – consonant (H, B, S, R)	Short consonant sound	team, stiff, kick	In the A letter family the 6th sound is a vowel sound that phonetically sounds like ‘ə
7 – consonant & o (Ho, Bo, So, Ro)	Long o	go, photo, so

Unique Sounds

In Amharic pronunciation, there are some sounds that are not normally found in the English language.  Here is a list of some of the Fidel that may seem a little unusual to an English speaker.

Sound #1	Sound File	Sound #2	Sound File	Explanation
ከ – Ke		ቀ – K’e		Ke is a softer sound similar to when you say kick.  K’e puts an accent on the K.
ተ – Te		ጠ – T’e		Te is a softer sound similar to when you say toe.  T’e puts an accent on the K by putting your tongue on the back of your front teeth.
ቸ – Che		ጨ – Ch’e		Che is a softer sound similar to when you say chair.  Ch’e puts an accent on the Ch.
ፐ – Pe		ጰ – P’e		Pe is a softer sound similar to when you say pizza.  P’e puts an accent on the P by pursing your lips while making the p sound.
ዠ – Zhe				This sound is similar to the French j sound in Bon Jour or Dejavu.
ኘ – Nye				It is similar to the ny in the English word canyon.
ጸ & ፀ – Tse				This sound is a hard t sound with an s sound.  It is made by putting your tongue at the back of your front teeth as you say both the t and s.

Let’s Learn the Amharic Alphabet is a great resource to help you learn all the letters, over 200 vocabulary words, and handwriting instruction and practice.