Amharic
Afro-Asiatic family · Semitic branch · Africa
Amharic is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Polar Questions, WALS codes Amharic as “Question particle and interrogative verb morphology”, a value held by 15 of the 955 languages coded, Tashlhiyt and Pirahã among them.
Within the Semitic branch, all 5 other languages coded for Vowel Quality Inventories have the value “Average vowel inventory (5-6)”; Amharic has “Large vowel inventory (7-14)”.
On Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns, WALS codes Amharic as “Gender distinctions in 3rd person plus 1st and/or 2nd person”, a value held by 18 of the 378 languages coded, Hausa and Arabic (Egyptian) among them.
Contrast Amharic with Tigré or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Amharic, rarest first.
- Order of Adposition and Noun PhraseMore than one adposition type with none dominant58 of 1,184
- Number of Cases2 case categories23 of 261
Inside the Afro-Asiatic family
Amharic matches the most frequent Afro-Asiatic value on 45 of the 83 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (54%). Among the 24 Afro-Asiatic languages profiled here, that rate ranks 22nd from the top.
| Feature | Amharic | Most relatives |
|---|---|---|
| Distributive Numerals | Marked by reduplication | No distributive numerals (4 of 4, Semitic branch) |
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Final subordinator word | Initial subordinator word (10 of 12, Semitic branch) |
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Amharic; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Amharic for 83 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 75 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Amharic shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Glottalized Consonants | Ejectives only | 58 of 567 |
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | 94 of 563 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Moderately high | 102 of 564 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in plosives alone | 189 of 567 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | /p t k b d g/ | 255 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | 235 of 469 |
| Syllable Structure | Moderately complex syllable structure | 274 of 486 |
| Tone | No tones | 307 of 527 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 of 567 |
| Uvular Consonants | No uvulars | 470 of 567 |
| Absence of Common Consonants | All present | 503 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Word structure 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Moderate preference for suffixing | 123 of 969 |
| Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | 278 of 368 |
Nouns and pronouns 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Genders | Two | 50 of 257 |
| The Associative Plural | Special bound associative plural marker | 48 of 236 |
| Indefinite Articles | Numeral for 'one' is used as indefinite article | 112 of 534 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Person marking for pronouns only | 83 of 378 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic and formal assignment | 59 of 257 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Symmetrical case-marking | 79 of 261 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based gender system | 84 of 257 |
| Definite Articles | Definite word distinct from demonstrative | 216 of 620 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive suffixes | 355 of 902 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | 114 of 261 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | 452 of 1,031 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | 513 of 1,066 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical | 94 of 168 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
Noun phrases 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Action Nominal Constructions | Possessive-Accusative | 29 of 168 |
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 11
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary | 146 of 1,131 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | 65 of 240 |
| The Prohibitive | Special imperative + special negative | 146 of 496 |
| The Perfect | Other perfect | 80 of 222 |
| The Past Tense | Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 94 of 222 |
| The Future Tense | No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction | 112 of 222 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | No overlap | 105 of 207 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | 292 of 548 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 121 of 222 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
Word order 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause precedes noun (RelN) | 141 of 824 |
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN) | 373 of 1,367 |
| Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral precedes noun (NumN) | 479 of 1,154 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN) | 542 of 1,225 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object precedes verb (OV) | 712 of 1,518 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-noun (GenN) | 685 of 1,249 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial | 615 of 902 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Negative Morphemes | Double negation | 119 of 1,157 |
| Predicative Possession | Locational Possessive | 48 of 240 |
| Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Double-object construction | 84 of 378 |
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | A precedes P | 96 of 379 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Identical | 117 of 386 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding | 132 of 386 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Comparative Constructions | Locational Comparative | 78 of 167 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No zero realization of third person S forms | 181 of 380 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of both the A and P arguments | 193 of 378 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is impossible | 211 of 386 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative alignment | 212 of 380 |
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs | 437 of 711 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
Vocabulary 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Hand and Arm | Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm' | 228 of 617 |
| Tea | Words derived from Sinitic cha | 110 of 230 |
| Numeral Bases | Decimal | 125 of 196 |
| M in Second Person Singular | No m in second person singular | 152 of 230 |
| M in First Person Singular | No m in first person singular | 177 of 230 |
| N-M Pronouns | No N-M pronouns | 194 of 230 |
| M-T Pronouns | No M-T pronouns | 200 of 230 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |