The 44th ordinary session of the Executive Council of the African Union (AU) kicked off in Addis Ababa.
Mekelle: 15 February 2024 (Tigray Herald)
The 44th ordinary session of the Executive Council of the African Union (AU) kicked off in Addis Ababa. During the occasion, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, Taye Atske Selassie proposed the inclusion of Amharic as the official language of the Union.
The FM mentioned that the requisition is presented in an alignment with the AU agenda 2063 and the goal for empowering indigenous African languages to contribute for the continent’s progress.
Studies indicated that having different working and official languages is important for promoting inclusivity, preserving cultural diversity, facilitating communication, enhancing representation, and promoting multilingualism and education.
The FM reminded the Executive Council of the AU that formerly the Organization of African Unity, OAU’s charter was initially signed in Four languages including Amharic.
Mr. Taye reiterated that including Amharic as AU’s official language will strengthen African’s collective identity, “Adopting Amharic, as one of the official language of the union would honor Africa’s linguistic diversity and strengthen our collective identity as Africans”.
Including indigenous languages as official language could possibly help AU’s efforts to withdraw from mind colonialism, and to exercise and rely up on African solutions for African problems.
Amharic is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic. Having its own writing system called FIDEL, it stands the Third most spoken language in Africa next to Hausa and Swahili. Amharic is also considered as the best documented of the Ethiosemitic languages and the official working language of Ethiopia.
