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The languages of
Djibouti Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...
include Afar,
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
,
Somali Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Somali ...
and
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
. Somali and Afar are the most widely spoken tongues, and Arabic and French serve as the official languages.


Languages

Djibouti is a
multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all ...
country. According to ''
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
'', the majority of the population speaks
Somali Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Somali ...
(524,000 speakers) or Afar (306,000 speakers) as a first language, which are the
mother tongue A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tong ...
s of the Somali and Afar ethnic groups, respectively. Both languages belong to the larger
Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic s ...
family.
Northern Somali Northern Somali ( so, Af Waqooyi) is a dialect of the Somali language and forms the basis for Standard Somali. It is spoken by more than 60% of the entire Somali population, with its speech area stretching from Djibouti, Somaliland and the Somali ...
is the main dialect spoken in the country and neighbouring
Somaliland Somaliland,; ar, صوماليلاند ', ' officially the Republic of Somaliland,, ar, جمهورية صوماليلاند, link=no ''Jumhūrīyat Ṣūmālīlānd'' is a ''de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still conside ...
, in contrast to
Benadiri Somali Benadiri Somali also referred to as “Coastal Somali” ( so, Af Reer Xamar) is a dialect of the Somali language. It is primarily spoken by the Benadiri people, who inhabit the southern Banaadir coast of Somalia. Overview Benadiri Somali is spo ...
which is the main dialect spoken in
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...
. There are two official languages in Djibouti:
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
. Arabic is of religious importance. In a formal setting, it consists of
Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also re ...
. Colloquially, about 59,000 local residents speak the Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic dialect, also known as ''Djibouti Arabic''. French was inherited from the colonial period and is the primary language of instruction. About 17,000 Djiboutians speak it as a first language. Immigrant languages include
Omani Arabic Omani Arabic (also known as Omani Hadari Arabic) is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Al Hajar Mountains of Oman and in a few neighboring coastal regions. It is the easternmost Arabic dialect. It was formerly spoken by colonists in Kenya and T ...
(38,900 speakers),
Amharic Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...
(1,400 speakers),
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
(1,000 speakers) and
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
(600 speakers). Additionally, the Somali
deaf community Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...
in Djibouti uses the
Somali Sign Language Somali Sign Language (SSL) is a sign language used by the deaf community in Somaliland and Djibouti. In the 1980s a school for the deaf was established in the Somali Kenyan town of Wajir by Annalena Tonelli. Students there became fluent in Ken ...
. The Somali language is regulated by the Regional Somali Language Academy, an intergovernmental institution established in June 2013 in Djibouti City by the governments of Djibouti,
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...
and
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
. It is officially mandated with preserving the Somali language.


Writing system

Nationally, the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
is the most widely used orthography for all languages. The Somali alphabet, a modified form of the script, is used to write Somali. In the early 1970s, two Afar intellectuals and nationalists, Dimis and Redo, formalized a similar Afar alphabet. Known as ''Qafar Feera'', the orthography is also based on the Latin script. Additionally, Somali and Afar are transcribed using the
Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...
.


Notes


References


''Ethnologue'', "Languages of Djibouti"
{{Djibouti-stub stub ru:Население Джибути#Языки