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Afaan Oromo the lingua-franca of oromo people belongs to the Eastern Cushitic groups of languages among the Afro-Asiatic languages, Saho-Afar, Somali, Konso, Agaw, Hadya, Sidama, Kambata, Darassa and Beja. It is the mother tongue of over 30 million oromo people living in the Ethiopian empire and neighboring countries including Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Tanzania, Uganda and other countries in eastern Africa. Not less than 8 million non-oromos also speak it as a second language. This makes Afaan oromo the third most widely spoken language in Africa after Arabic and Hausa from among approximately 1000 languages Gragg,1982. There are several groups of people in East Africa very closely related to the Oromo. For instance, the Somalis are very similar in appearance and culture. The fact that the Somali and Oromo languages share between 30 percent and 40 percent of their vocabulary could be an indication that these two groups of people became differentiated very recently. Other Cushitic-speaking groups living in the same neighborhood who are closely related to the Oromo are Konso, Afar, Sidama, Kambata, Darassa, Agaw, Saho, Beja and other groups. Oromo language is very closely related to Konso, with more than fifty percent of the words in common, closely related to Somali and distantly related to Afar and Saho ,oromo liberationfront.org. In spite of the fact that Afaan oromo is a lingua-franca in the whole of Ethiopia, it has been not only neglected but also ruthlessly suppressed by Abyssinian authorities for over a century. Amazingly, it survived a determined effort to destroy it by the combined effort of the dedicated oromo MARTYRS! Afan oromo was totally discarded and banned from any form of medium of instruction by saying that 'birds language-Afaan sinbiraa' breaks Radios and TVs. It remained essentially a well-developed oral tradition until the early 1990's when oromo liberation front began to use it as an official language in the liberated areas and its script as its official alphabet, too. The adoption of a script for Afaan oromo had been a burning issue in the 1970's being suggested. Until 1974 when Mengistu's ruthless regime came to power writing Afan oromo was banned officially. Although Mengistu's regime lifted the ban and reluctantly allowed, it continued to pay only a lip service to the development of Afan oromo. For instance, A fan oromo was illegal at any level in its school system. About five months after the collapse of Mengistu's regime in may1991, the OLF called intellectuals on November 3,1991. The purpose of the meeting was to adopt the languages or suggest an alternative. Over 1000 oromo intellectuals met in the parliament building at Kaloo irressaa korma (arat kilo) Finfine. After a six-hour deliberation it was unanimously decided that the Latin script be adopted, extracted from paper presented by Tilahun Gamta, professor of Linguistic studies Addis Ababa and Author of Oromo/English dictionary, at the 1992 oromo studies conference. In my opinion even if OLF is the one who brought it into action, greater thanks goes to our oromo brothers and sisters who lived that time and give their precious life to all oromo case and in particular survival of Afaan oromo ;from among those dedicated brothers an oromo slave who have been sold many times to westerners Abba Gammachis (onesmosinasib), Sheik Bakir Saphalo and many others are those whose names to be listed on the first line of the history book of independent Gada republic of oromiya. The following article from Gustave, Gren, 1978. Evangelical Pioneers in Ethiopia. Origin of the Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. Offset center Ab. Uppsala. in part supports this opinion. "Much has been written about Oromiffa by foreigners who visited or lived in Oromia, particularly European missionaries. Several works have been written in Oromiffa using Roman, Sabean and Arabic scripts. Printed material in Oromiffa include the Bible, religious and non-religious songs, dictionaries, short stories, proverbs, poems, school books, grammar, etc. The Bible itself was translated into Oromiffa in Sabean script about a century ago by an Oromo slave called Onesimos Nasib, alias Hiikaa, (Gustave, 1978)." |
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