It is the official national language of Ethiopia and is widely spoken specifically in North Central Ethiopia, Ahmara region and Addis Ababa. Since it is a national language therefore it is used in government, public media, national commerce and education and has approximately 27 million speakers. Although it is widely spoken in North Central Ethiopia however there are number of Amharic speakers in Egypt, Israel and Sweden as well. It was named after Ahmara people which is an ethnic group who inhabit the Central Highlands of Ethiopia and comprises 30.1% of country's population according to 1994 census.
Ahmaric is a Semitic language and second most popular Semitic language after Arabic. Semitic languages are a special class of languages that is spoken by 300+ million people in Middle East and parts of Africa. Variety of literature like fiction, poetry, plays and magazines can also be found in Ahmaric language. Some alternate names to Ahmaric are also present like Abyssinian, Ethiopian, Amarinya, Amarigna. Its speakers in Ethiopia also use English, Arabic, Oromo, or Tigrinya while Jews speakers use Hebrew.
