Amharic Alphabet, Fidäl / ፊደል 23.02

Amharic is an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic branch and belongs to the Ethiosemitic group. It is spoken as a mother tongue by the Amhara people, as well as other communities residing in major cities and towns across Ethiopia.

The language serves as the official working language of Ethiopia and is also the official or working language in several states within the federal system.

As of 2007, Amharic has approximately 22 million speakers, making it the second most widely spoken Semitic language globally after Arabic.

Amharic is written from left to right using a script that evolved from the Ge'ez abugida, known as "fidel" (ፊደል) in Ethiopian Semitic languages, which translates to "writing system," "letter," or "character," and is classified as an abugida (አቡጊዳ).

The Ge'ez script, also known as Ethiopic, initially functioned as an abjad (consonant-only alphabet) and was primarily used for writing Ge'ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. In Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is commonly referred to as fidäl (ፊደል), meaning "script" or "alphabet."

The Ge'ez script has been adapted to write various Semitic languages, especially Amharic in Ethiopia and Tigrinya in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is also utilized for Sebatbeit, Me'en, and most other languages spoken in Ethiopia. In Eritrea, the script is used for Tigre and historically for Blin, a Cushitic language. Tigre, spoken in western and northern Eritrea, bears a closer resemblance to Ge'ez compared to other derivative languages. While some languages in the Horn of Africa, like Oromo, were previously written using Ge'ez, they have transitioned to Latin-based orthographies over time.