Amharic, the official working language of Ethiopia with over 50 million speakers, [1] shares a distant linguistic heritage with Arabic, one of the world's most widely spoken languages with over 420 million speakers across 25+ countries. [2] Both languages belong to the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, sharing some ancient linguistic roots.
While Amharic uses the ancient Ge'ez script (Fidel), a syllabic writing system where each character represents a consonant-vowel combination, Arabic employs its own distinctive script that flows from right to left. [3] The Arabic script is renowned for its elegant calligraphy, recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Despite their shared Semitic ancestry, [4] Amharic and Arabic have developed vastly different grammatical structures, vocabularies, and phonetic systems over millennia of separate evolution. Amharic belongs to the South Semitic branch, while Arabic is classified as a Central Semitic language.
The need for translation between these languages has grown significantly due to increasing economic ties, migration patterns, and cultural exchanges between Ethiopia and the Arab world. Many Ethiopian communities reside in Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait, creating demand for accurate translation services.
Our free translation tool serves Ethiopian diaspora communities, businesses engaged in cross-regional trade, students, researchers, and travellers, providing instant translations while respecting the unique characteristics of both languages.
Our translation software provides high-quality translation results for free, as it uses Google’s powerful translation API to instantly translate sentences between Amharic and Arabic. You can use our tool to translate up to 5000 characters per request—and the good news is, you can make unlimited requests.