Introduction
Oromo, also called Afaan Oromo and Oromiffa, is a Cushitic language spoken in most parts of Ethiopia and northern parts of Kenya. It is the third most widely spoken language in Africa, after Hausa and Arabic. Oromos live in many regions as a result of expansion from their homeland in the highlands of Ethiopia beginning in the 16th century. Despite this wide geographic spread Oromos from inside and outside of Ethiopia can communicate with each other with relative ease.

Status
Oromo is spoken as a first language by about 20 million speakers in Ethiopia and Kenya. In the 20th century, the Oromos suffered continual political and social oppression by the dominant Amhara ethnic group. Oromo was banned from use in education, the media, and public life first during the reign of Haile Selassie, and subsequently during the communist regime that followed his overthrow. The good news is that today, the Oromo people of Ethiopia are allowed to speak their language again. Since 1993, Oromo has been used as a medium of instruction in schools in the Oromo-speaking areas of Ethiopia.Oromo is a lingua franca in Ethiopia, except for the northern part.

Estimates of the Oromo population are uncertain. The problem stems largely from the Ethiopian government's attempts to downplay the country's ethnic diversity. Despite the fact that the Oromos are almost certainly the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, making up 40-50% of its population, the language does not enjoy official recognition.

Sound system
Like other Afro-Asiatic languages, Oromo has the following characteristic features:

Vowels
There are five vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, /u/. They can be short or long. The length of the vowel makes a difference in word meaning. In writing, they are represented by a double vowel, e.g., laga "river" and laagaa "roof of the mouth."

Consonants
There are 24 consonants. The consonants b, d, dh, g, l, m, n, and r can be single or doubled (geminated). In writing, the latter are represented by a double consonant, e.g., damee "branch," dammee "sweet potato." Like its close relative, Somali, native Oromo words do not have the consonants /p/, /v/, and /z/. These sounds occur only in loanwords. The glottal stop is represented by an apostrophe.

Syllable shapes
Most syllables in Oromo are open, i.e., they end in a vowel.

Tones
Oromo is considered to be a tonal language. Its tonal system is different from the tonal system of languages, such as Chinese, in which every word is associated with a particular tone. The Oromo tone-accent system is mostly active at the grammar and discourse levels to indicate grammatical categories and information structure rather than to make a difference in word meaning. Tones are not usually marked in writing.

Click here to listen to Voice of America broadcasts in Oromo.

Writing
Until the 1970s, Afaan Oromo was written with either the Ethiopic script or the Latin alphabet. Between 1974 and 1991 under the military regime, the writing of Afaan Oromo in any script was forbidden. The Latin alphabet was adopted after the overthrow of the military regime in 1991.

Ethiopic script is a syllable-based writing system which consists of 30 consonants, each of which is modified by one of seven vowels. This means that each symbol represents a Consonant + Vowel syllable. It is written from left to right. It was developed originally for writing Ge'ez, the ancient language of the Ethiopian region. Here are the first few symbols of the Ethiopic script.

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights inwritten in Latin Oromo.

1. Can you recognize any words in the text?
2. Can you find any words with long vowels?
3. Can you find any words with geminated consonants?