Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 19:233–249, 2013

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1353-7113 print / 1557-2986 online

DOI: 10.1080/13537113.2013.788919

Is Multilingualism a Problematic Paradigm

in Ethiopia?

ALEMSEGED ABBAY

Frostburg State University

In Ethiopia, the promotion of Amharic by state nationalism was

one of the factors that engendered counternationalisms such as the

Eritrean secessionist movement. However, a free market of languages along with the domestication of English can contribute to

managing/resolving communal conflicts and can usher the country into the global era. Such a liberal language policy does not

jettison vernaculars; on the contrary, it permits them unlimited

space to coexist or compete with one another and with English for

primacy. Amharic will remain primus entre pares in the foreseeable

future. However, the free market will catapult one or more of the

major languages in the country as well as English to an official

status, keeping the vernaculars for their emblematic values.

INTRODUCTION

Incrementally, some sense of global citizenship in an ever-shrinking world

appears in the making. As the world shrinks, the state mutates. The Ethiopian

state of 2013 is not the nation-state that the rulers of the “Solomonic”

Dynasty1 and the military junta (Derg) that followed them wanted to build

in their own image for most of the 20th century. It is no longer the state

whose nationalism was challenged by the Eritrean (1961–1991) and Tigrayan

(1975–1991) counternationalisms. Both state nationalism and ethnoregional

counternationalisms appear to belong to a bygone era that may have phased

out with the century.2

Although it is difficult to predict whether the ongoing mutation of the

state will lead to its extinction,3 or if new kinds of political entities, such as the

European Union, are in the offing; globalization4 has made state boundaries

porous and the curtain of sovereignty transparent,5 making states susceptible

Address correspondence to Alemseged Abbay, Department of History, Frostburg State

University, Frostburg, MD 21532. E-mail: aabbay@frostburg.edu

233

234 A. Abbay

to international pressures and weakening the sanctity of their sovereignty,

as the role of the international community in the “Arab Spring” sufficiently

demonstrates. The idea of the nation-state, too, is increasingly losing its

luster.

For more than half a century, the political landscape of Ethiopia has

been checkered with tension between centripetal forces of uniformity, which

launched state nationalism, and centrifugal forces of microidentities, which

came up with their own nationalisms. Until 1991, the tension was, partially,

but not exclusively, nurtured by the explosive energy in language. Today,

this tension, which was responsible for some of Africa’s bloodiest wars,

such as the Eritrean secessionist war (1961–91), is increasingly relegated by

globalization into a nonissue. The historically dominant identity of the state

actors, who were derived primarily from the Amhara ethnic group, as well

as the microidentities of the Tigrayans, Oromo, and others, face the same

exact fate—retreat against forces of globalization. And the principal carrier

of globalization is the ubiquitous English.

AMAHRA, AMHARIC, AND AMHARANIZATION IN HISTORICAL

TRAJECTORY

The historical records are replete with “Amhara” as the name of a region

as well as a people: “by about the ninth century, there was a distinct tribal

(or linguistic) group known by the name of Amhara in the area between

the Tekeze river and the valleys of the eastern tributaries of the Blue Nile.”6

During the 13th century, Yekuno-Amlak made Amhara and northern Shoa

the center of his Christian Kingdom. In the 16th century, “Christian Amhara”

became the dominant division of Abyssinia.7 Even the Oromo migrants who

were settling in the Amharaland were assimilating themselves into the social

culture of the linguistic group.8 By the middle of the 19th century, Amhara

was “generally employed to designate all that extent of territory in which the

Amharic language is spoken.”9 Amharic became the court language,10 used

even by the non-Amhara elite, including the Tigrayan Emperor of Ethiopia,

Yohannes IV (1872–89), in their foreign correspondences.11

Since the end of the 19th century, territorial expansion was accompanied, and at times preceded, by diffusion of Amhara cultural and social

values (Amharanization). Metropolitan Addis Ababa, too, became a venue of

assimilation into a single urban social and cultural community where ethnic

particularities melted away. The language spoken in this context has been

Amharic, with its own accent of metropolitan social-cultural values.

However, what has taken place in Addis Ababa is an exception to

the rule. Ethiopia is predominantly rural and, given the overall absence of

socioeconomic mobilization, it is parochialism that dominates its society. The

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 235

identity that readily comes to the peasantry is, therefore, the village and, in

the case of the urbanites, the regions of Gojam, Gondar, Wello, etc., rather

than pan-ethnic identity such as Amhara. Thus, the self-designation with a

pan-identity tends to be a modern phenomenon, often promoted by ethnic

and political entrepreneurs. Even then, collective identity requires designation by the relevant others. Just as anyone who speaks Oromiffa, irrespective

of the dialect, is an “Oromo” and anyone who speaks Tigrinya (Eritrean12

or Tigrayan) is just a “Tigrayan” to the Amhara, so is anyone who speaks

Amharic an “Amhara” to the Oromo, Tigrayans, and other Ethiopians. Despite the fact that identity is a two-way road of how people see themselves

and how others see them, what matters most is not how the Amhara see

themselves but how others see them. In general, the people from Adi Qeyih

(southern Eritrea), for instance, see themselves not as Eritrean or Kebessa

(Eritrean highlands), but as Akkele Guzai (one of the three components of

the Kebessa), as if it were a world unto itself. To the Eritrean lowlanders,

though, the people of Akele Guzai, along with those of the other two regions

of Seraye and Hamassien, are just Kebessa (highlanders), that is, not lowlanders. And to the outside world, they are all just Eritreans. Similarly, even if

Amharic-speakers did not see themselves as Amhara, the other Ethiopians

have constructed that name for them.

AMHARIC: A COHESIVE OR DIVISIVE LANGUAGE?

Languages are dynamic—they grow or shrink in accordance with their own

socioeconomic context. Whereas some prosper, others may be born, come

of age, peak and ebb. Some may even get swallowed by other languages

that are solidly backed by powerful social, economic, and political forces.

Indeed, the fate of languages is determined by their role in the economic

and political climate of a society. For instance, a widely spoken and written

language in ancient Ethiopia, Geez, has been elbowed out of mainstream

society, cornered in the social enclave of the Church. Now even as a liturgical language, it is losing ground to Amharic. Languages may also shrink

into sociocultural irrelevance. That was what used to happen to the major

Ethiopian languages such as Oromiffa and Tigrinya before the demise of the

military junta, Derg (1974–91).

In the peasant world of Ethiopia, the forces of a market economy have

not mobilized the society and there has not been a free market of languages

to allow the rise of a lingua franca less controversial than Amharic. Had such

a noncontroversial language emerged to the stature of a lingua franca, ethnic

minorities would have readily learned it because it would have given them

a badge of sophistication and new socioeconomic opportunities. Further,

this kind of language may have been perceived as ethnic neutral, readily

serving as a banner of collective identity. The vacuum that was created

236 A. Abbay

by the absence of such a lingua franca in Ethiopia was quickly filled by

Amharic that was elevated to an official/national status by virtue of being

the language of the ruling elite. Subsequently, it has been glamorized as

lisane negus (court language) and simultaneously derided as the language

of the oppressors.

Privileging Amharic as an official/national language added fuel to the

ethnoregional nationalist flames in the country. Without the involvement of

political actors, languages are inherently too innocent to create nationalism

by themselves. On the contrary, it is nationalism that gives them a lethal

power. For instance, despite the fact that Tigrinya had been under siege

for a long time in Amharic-dominated Ethiopia, it did not create Tigrayan

ethnic nationalism in 1975. Denied any academic, administrative and literary role, Tigrinya had been cornered and had begun to ebb. Against this

backdrop, none of the 28 Tigrayan nationalist leaders I interviewed in 1993

had ever written anything in his/her own native tongue before starting the

armed struggle in 1975. It was during the armed struggle (1975–91) that

Tigrinya was extensively used as a written language in Tigray, northern

Ethiopia. Typically, not only did Tigrayan nationalism give life to an increasingly dying language but, by purging Amharic words, protected its “purity”

as well. Oromo nationalism has even gone further by replacing the Geez

script (Abyssinian—Amhara and Tigrayan) with the Latin alphabet in order to distance itself from the Abyssinians. As such, Oromo nationalism has

made Oromiffa a protector of Oromo collective identity. During the armed

struggle (1961–91), Eritrean nationalism, too, considered replacing the Geez

script with a Latin script in Tigrinya in order to break its ties with the rest

of Ethiopia. But, the idea was dropped when Eritrean professionals and academics, except the anthropologist Asmerom Legesse, opposed it.13 Even in

independent Eritrea, which is led by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front

(EPLF), now People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), a majority of

Eritreans do not want to give up the script they have used throughout their

history.14 Unlike Somalia, which had not had a history of literature in its own

script and thus could safely adopt the Latin script in 1972, Eritrea could not

shift to Latin because it would entail a radical change of cultural identity. As

the examples illustrate, it is only in the hands of political entrepreneurs that

language loses its innocence and becomes a lethal weapon of nationalism.

In a society that is mobilized by forces of the market economy, the emergence of Amharic to an undisputable literary and official standing would not

have been an affront to the other linguistic communities. For instance, in the

1780s, the Austrian absolutist monarch, Joseph II, dropped Latin and made

German official because, as a language of literature, it could connect all parts

of his empire. However, Menelik II, at the turn of the 20th century, was not

to Ethiopia what Joseph II, at the end of 18th century, was to Austria, and

Amharic was not to Ethiopia what German was to Austria. Although it had begun to stand out in literary and political circles,15 the official/national standing

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 237

of Amharic had not been fully embraced by the non-Amharic-speaking

Ethiopians who saw their native languages being reduced to irrelevance.

It took Eritrea’s return to Ethiopia in 1962 to challenge the trend. Eritreans

resisted the denigration of their principal language, Tigrinya, which had been

the academic and administrative language during the British era (1941–52)

and federal period (1952–62). Indeed it was the imposition of Amharic being

seen as one of the potent grievances that led them to seek secession.

But, far-sightedness and clear-thinking could have dictated that an official tongue did not have to be the language of the politically dominant ethnic

group or the one that is spoken by the largest ethnic group in a country.16

As a diverse society looks for an ethnic-neutral language for constructing a

unique identity, it can address the sensibilities of ethnic groups by according

them symbolic official status.17 Since there is a close relationship between

language and cultural identity, vernaculars can enjoy emblematic value while

the winner(s) in a free market competition and English can have functional

value. However, given its current standing in academic, administrative, and

urban settings, Amharic will continue to play a “quasi lingua franca” role in

the foreseeable future, unless and until globalization sidelines it.

NATION-STATE

The earliest nation-states emerged in relatively more homogenous political

units such as the Netherlands, France, and Britain. They were followed by

Italy and Germany in the 19th century. The Ethiopian ruling classes followed

the German model of the nation-state, which focused on romantic ethnic

and linguistic nationalism, making language the essential defining feature of

the nation-state. Another model, the French nation-state, which focused on

the universal principles and values of humanity rather than on primordial

elements,18 was conceived by the middle class and shaped by the 1789

democratic revolution. With a miniscule middle class and without passing

through a democratic revolution, Ethiopia, however, had no use for the

French model.

Consequently, language has been instrumental in the Ethiopian statebuilding process. The “Solomonic” state-builders saw themselves as the bearers of the Ethiopian identity, much like how the 19th century Romanovs saw

themselves as the Great Russians and the Hohenzollern discovered that they

were Germans and in the process developed “official nationalism.”19 Amharic

was thus made the language-of-state and its dominance culminated during

the reign of Menelik II (1889–1913).

The expansion of Ethiopian frontiers, at the end of the 19th century and

early 20th century, was accompanied by cultural conquistadors who were

bent on assimilating the cultural particularities of the newly incorporated

peoples. Promulgated in 1944, even Western missionaries who were actively

238 A. Abbay

proselytizing the newly annexed peoples in the southern parts of the country

were forbidden to use native languages beyond the very early stage of their

teaching activities.20 Taking Amharic to places where it was not spoken,

Western missionaries became not only proselytizers but, in effect, members

of the cultural conquistadors.

As the nation-building process relied upon Amharic, other languages

were ignored, suppressed and stigmatized. For instance, an apologist of

Emperor Menelik II, Afwerq G. Iyesus, encouraged the development of

Amharic literature at the expense of not only the “worn-out language”

(aroge quanqua) of Geez but the other languages including Tigrinya that

he dismissed as a language that “lacerates the throat” (Gororo yemifiq).21

By coupling language with nationhood, he believed that the emergent

Ethiopian nation-state had to depend upon Amharic.

Further, as the return of Eritrea to Ethiopia became likely in the late

1940s, the Ethiopian regime made it clear that Amharic was going to displace

Tigrinya as the official language of the region. The leader of the Eritrean

Unionist Party, Tedla Bairu, concurred with the Ethiopian position that, as

a “dialect” of Amharic, Tigrinya was going to give up its official status.22

On the other hand, many Eritreans, who were apprehensive about losing

their own language, argued that Tigrinya in Eritrea was going to die the

way it was dying in Tigray.23 In fact, the most articulate and best-known

political activist of the time, Walde-Ab Walde-Mariam, whose knowledge of

Tigrinya had earned him the title of “Father of Tigrinya” [Abo Tigrinya],24

clearly predicted what was going to happen to Tigrinya if, and when, Eritrea

merged with Ethiopia:

The Ethiopian government presented a memorandum to the UN stating

that since Tigrinya is a dialect of Amharic, it will be replaced by Amharic

when Ethiopia acquires Eritrea. ... Only few people understand Amharic

in Eritrea. ... Since it is decided that Amharic will be the administrative

language, who is going to enforce administrative and security jobs? Or

as what used to be done [in Eritrea] during the Italian rule and as what

happens in Tigray today, are we going to be led by mischievous interpreters! ... If education is the primary means of civilization for a people,

how are the more than three million Tigrinya speakers going to reach

civilization if Amharic becomes the language of education.25

However, for Emperor Haile Selassie, Eritrea was an unwelcome inheritance as it was going to be a financial drain to his country.26 Further, he

knew subjecting it into Ethiopia’s nation-state building project was going to

be rocky. Indeed, the Emperor’s dilemma is understandable. A liberal political system in Eritrea with freedoms of the press and speech, political parties,

parliamentary elections, rule of law, and an autonomous administrative system could not mesh with absolutism in the rest of the Ethiopian Empire. As

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 239

a result, no sooner did the UN federate it with Ethiopia in 1952 than Tigrinya

began to be strangulated and Amharic began to creep into Eritrea starting in

the Eritrean parliament where the Emperor’s representatives were addressing

delegates in Amharic. Tigrinya newspapers vanished and Tigrinya books, by

and large, ceased to be published. The school system stifled Tigrinya, as

Amharic became the academic language.

Given the apartheid-style Italian colonial rule (1890–1941), Eritrea’s

peasant landscape had remained unperturbed by forces of modernity. As

such, the native world had not been socially mobilized and there was not a

distinct Eritrean sense of collective identity. Eritrea’s return to Ethiopia was,

thus, inevitable following the sudden departure of Italy from the region in

1941. Notwithstanding the absence of an Eritrean national mass movement

that sought to go it alone, the more Ethiopia clamored for uniformity during

the federal era (1952–62), the fiercer became the alienation of the Eritreans and the more Tigrinya became a viable tool of protecting their sense

of besieged collective identity. Consequently, by 1961, a hyperromanticized

Eritrea began to be imagined. Contrary to reality, Eritreans began to entertain

a romantic image of the Italian era,27 much like Mobutu’s misrule made the

Congolese view the harsh colonial era with nostalgia—les temps de Belgique!

In the rest of Ethiopia, however, until the second half of the 20th century, homogenization had proceeded fairly smoothly and the assimilators

encountered no serious resistance not because Amharic had acquired an indisputable lingua franca status the way English did in Scotland or French

did in Brittany but because the various ethnic groups lacked print technology to challenge the process the way Russification was overtly resisted by

ethnic minorities in the 1905 Russian revolution. Amharanization, thus, had

made significant inroads in the country by the 1950s when Eritrea, with some

exposure to print technology, became the harbinger of resistance against the

process. Resistance was then emulated by the hitherto acquiescent Tigrayans

and Oromo who launched their own vernacular-based ethnic nationalisms.

Had there not been a forceful and conscious imposition of Amharic at the

expense of other languages, assimilation would not have provoked counternationalisms. In the British Isles, for instance, unlike Magyarization or Russification, there was not any vernacular-based counternationalism because

Anglicization was not forcefully imposed. In the Ethiopian case, though, the

imposition of Amharic engendered various grievances, which served as some

of the vital raw materials to be processed in the counternationalist mills.

The military junta, Derg, which deposed Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974,

retained the language policy of the imperial regime,28 holding Ethiopia a

captive of the diversity-is-a-problem paradigm so much so that there was a

silent movement to portray Amharic as ethnic neutral. In the late 1970s, the

Amharic Department in Addis Ababa University was renamed as the Institute

of Ethiopian Languages. Despite the name, only Amharic was taught. This

was an attempt to christen Amharic as the Ethiopian language. In 1991, in

240 A. Abbay

a debate conducted between Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and prominent

academics, Professor Mesfin Woldemariam argued that there was no ethnic

group called “Amhara.” The implication was that no one owns Amharic. Just

like Swahili, it is ethnic neutral. This would have given Amharic a national

label, like Tagalog in multiethnic Philippines was renamed “Phillippino” in

1959.

LANGUAGE AND NATION-BUILDING

[We] will speak in Swahili or Lingala; we have our own national Flemish.29

Italy’s segregationist colonial policy in Eritrea did not permit natives to learn

Italian; nor did the brief Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1936–41) enable the

Ethiopians to speak the colonial language. Consequently, the entire region

did not experience the debate over the role of the colonial language as

did Lumumba’s Congo. Amharic thus became a necessary building block of

the nation-state, nurturing state nationalism and giving counternationalisms

the energy to politicize collective identity. In general, such energy leads

ethnic entrepreneurs to maintain the purity of their languages by purging

alien words. They may even go so far as to resuscitate languages that are

fading into oblivion as in the case of Hebrew or Gaelic. For the Jews, for

instance, language had not been the source of national identity. Along with

Judaism and the memory of biblical Israel, it was the pogroms in Eastern

Europe and the subsequent Holocaust that buttressed their Jewish collective

identity. However, given language’s potential to serve as a building block

of the nation-state, Hebrew has been resurrected as the official/national

language of the state of Israel since 1948. Thus, immigrants from Ethiopia

in Africa, Yemen in the Middle East, Argentina in Latin America, or Poland

in Eastern Europe have had to learn Hebrew, which has now become a

powerful symbol of Israeli identity.

Yet, the power inherent in Hebrew to mesh the various peoples in the

Jewish melting pot is absent in Amharic. First, unlike Hebrew, Amharic is not

ethnic neutral. Second, the pan-Ethiopian identity is not glued by a powerful

racial and religious element as the one that ties Jewish people everywhere. As

such, multilingual Ethiopia needs exceptional ingenuity in its process of statebuilding. The preferential treatment of Amharic has transformed languages

such as Oromiffa into crucial tools of protecting collective identities. By

distancing themselves from Amharic, not only have the Oromo dropped the

Geez script but they are also purging Amharic words from their language.

Language is one of the most potent and emotion-laden primordial factors

that political actors utilize to advance their nationalist agenda. In Belgium,

for instance, Wallonia developed mainly in reaction to growing Flemish nationalism. Following the partition of British India between India proper and

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 241

Pakistan, Bengali nationalism emerged in reaction to the imposition of Urdu

as the official/national language of both West and East Pakistan, culminating in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Tamil nationalism developed in

reaction to Sinhalese dominance in Sri Lanka. In Cyprus, Turk identity was

politicized, more than ever before, in reaction to the imposition of Greek

in the island. In reaction to the role of English in Canada, French became

a symbol of Queb´ ecois nationalism. In the early 19th century, the impo- ´

sition of Russian upon Finland led to the rise of the Finnish language as

the principal symbol of Finnish identity.30 In South Africa, Anglicization provoked a rabid reactive Afrikaner ethnic nationalism during the early part of

the 20th century. At the turn of the 19th century, the subjection of Poland

to intense Germanization and Russification gave Polish a lethal energy. In

Senegal, attempts to make Wolof official, on a par with French, have been

resisted by non-Wolof speakers who have been reacting by using their native

languages in lieu of French.31 Nigeria’s plan to groom an official language

out of Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo was abandoned when minorities resented

it, leaving English as the de facto official language.32 And in Ethiopia the

elevation of Amharic to an official/national status has unleashed the lethal

energy inherent in languages, inflaming further the ethnoregional tension

that has bedeviled the country for over half-a-century.

In sum, privileging one language to an official/national status can provoke vernacular-based reactive nationalisms in divided societies. Moreover,

the very belief that linguistic uniformity is a precondition for a tranquil

process of state-building is not warranted. If that were the case, polyglot

Switzerland, not monoglot Somalia, would have been swamped in a protracted communal conflict. Uniformity has not given the Somalis tranquility.

On the contrary, it is ethnically diverse, but federal, Ethiopia that has been

attracting Somalis, Kunama, Tigrayans, and Afars from neighboring Somalia and Eritrea. Nor has Tigrinya glued a trans-Mareb identity of Tigray and

Eritrea, now separated by the international boundary of the river Mareb.

Indeed, as a 19th-century French historian pointed out, language is not a

necessary ingredient of national identity.33 For example, as stated earlier,

Jewish identity preceded the revival of Hebrew, and Scottish identity was

based on history rather than language. Thus, Ethiopia can learn a lot from

the experiences of the various societies discussed above about how to harness the explosive energy inherent in languages wisely and tactfully so that

it can manage its ethnic conflicts and make its people feel at home in the

ever-shrinking global village.

POSTETHNIC ETHIOPIA: LAISSEZ-FAIRE OF LANGUAGES

South Africa and Switzerland do not privilege a single language to an official stature; nor do they show that languages are sine qua non for identity

242 A. Abbay

formation. As India and Congo show, forging a distinct collective identity

is not necessarily dependent upon sharing a distinct language. Domesticating the colonial language of English has not weakened the Indian collective

identity. Among the Congolese, it is not language, but la congolete´, based

on territorial integrity, national music, shared history of suffering under colonialism as well as the struggle against predatory economic practices that

nurture the Congolese identity.34 Similarly, the construction of an Ethiopian

collective identity does not require privileging one of the native languages

to an official status.

Today, in the increasingly shrinking world, language is losing its luster as

a marker of identity. A pan-European identity based on democracy, which

is undeterred by geographical and cultural constraints, is in the making.

In the Horn of Africa, too, globalization is destined to freely cross political

boundaries that are hardly geographical barriers. Even the river Mareb, which

Eritrean jingoists fuss about as a border mark between the Tigrinya-speaking

people of Ethiopia’s Tigray and the Eritrean highlands (Kebessa), is not a

barrier of any geographical importance. Since it reveals its dry beds for most

of the year, it was not even a political barrier when the Italians made it an

international boundary between their colony of Eritrea and Tigray. People

on both sides did not need any passports or visas to crisscross it. In the era of

globalization, too, it is unlikely that the river will become a tangible barrier

to the Tigrayan, Afar, and Kunama ethnic groups that straddle the imaginary

border.

In fact, secession, which was Eritrea’s sacrosanct mission in 1961, looks

now more like a vanity enterprise and Eritrea’s process of nation-building

seems anachronistic in the 21st century. In fact, the whole model of the

nation-state appears obsolete in a world that is shrinking. Europe, which

had given the world the model of the nation-state, is itself leading humanity out of the trap. Similarly, Ethiopia may be better off getting out of the

Amharic-based nation-state building morass and leapfrogging to the postethnic and postnation format by building multidimensional social, cultural, and

economic structures that tie it with the rest of the Horn of Africa and the world

in general. Thus, it would be superfluous, at best, and a contributing element

for ethnic conflict, at worst, to privilege one language as official/national. On

the contrary, it would be beneficial to give all of the Ethiopian languages

equal standing and to domesticate English so that all can compete equally

in a free market of languages. Such a liberal policy, which in essence is no

language policy, denies ethnic political entrepreneurs the lethal power that

is inherent in languages—an important step in relegating identity politics to

archaism. Then, the Horn of Africa may have a better place in the modern

world, which is leaving the era of the nation-state and ethnic politics behind

and entering a new era of globalization.

A political system of a no language policy will not dump vernaculars

as primordial relics. On the contrary, ethnic groups would be supported

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 243

to pursue a promotional policy towards their languages. In fact, certain

languages of the Horn of Africa may deserve special attention because they

can bring people together. Artificial political boundaries have been splitting

languages such as Kunama, Tigrinya, Afar, and Somali. Language academies,

much like Academie franc ´ ¸aise and Russian Academy, can resuscitate and

maintain the uniformity and standard usage of these languages. Retaining the

uniformity of those languages can help people, who are divided by imaginary

political boundaries, to see each other as sharing the same cultural identity.

Further, Eritrea’s inability to be an economically viable state shows that, at

least in the economic sphere, regional integration, which is an integral part

of the ongoing globalization, is necessary. For small states such as Djibouti

and Eritrea, it may even be a matter of survival. The existence of language

academies that promote uniformity of regional languages may also restrain

political entrepreneurs from abusing their languages for selfish political ends.

Otherwise, political leaders may exaggerate or even invent differences. For

instance, in Eritrea, the leaders are busy inventing a unique identity with

a variant of their own Tigrinya, different from that of their kin south of

the river Mareb. They freely insert Arabic and Italian words as badges of

refinement and sophistication. The more their Tigrinya looks different, the

more it accentuates their yearning to be different from their co-ethnics to the

south.

Thus, the claim that languages help political entrepreneurs mobilize their

constituencies35 as if there is something given and immutable in language that

automatically makes it a mobilizing force, is not necessarily warranted. Unless

Ethiopia’s political environment is inherently discriminatory, languages need

not be tools of political ideologies. For instance, without the Swedish cultural and Russian political hegemonies, the Finnish identity would not have

reclaimed its folk language and culture. Nor does pan-communal awareness

necessarily lead to any centrifugal tendencies. Pan-ethnic awareness of the

Celtic World has not led to a pan-ethnic political ideology among the Celtics

of Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Wales. In this

vein, keeping the standard and uniformity of languages in the Horn of Africa

will not necessarily encourage the rise of pan-movements such as the 1940s

Tigray-Tigrignie (pan-Tigrayan) movement of the Liberal Progressive Party in

Eritrea. It does not mean resuscitating the 1940s Somali Grande movement

of the Somali Youth League. It does, however, mean diluting the potency of

artificial boundaries that bifurcate a linguistic group (Kunama and Tigrayans

between Ethiopia and Eritrea) or trifurcate an ethnic community (Afar between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti) or divide an ethnicity among even

more polities (Somalis between Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya).

If languages, which are spoken across boundaries, do not retain their

uniformity and standard with the help of language academies, then they

may diverge into dialects. Tigrayans in Eritrea and Tigray will diverge and

the latter may even disappear as an ethnic entity. Demography not in their

244 A. Abbay

favor, Tigrayans in Ethiopia may face the fate of the French in Louisiana. Assimilation may also force the Afars and Somalis in Ethiopia to diverge from

their co-ethnics across the borders. If the ethnic groups on the Ethiopian

side succumb to Amharanization, then the bridge linking Ethiopia with Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia may be tenuous. Co-ethnics across boundaries

may decide to stay out of the new economic and political frameworks that

globalization brings to the Horn of Africa.

As the Swiss model shows, dualism can define Ethiopian-ness. The Swiss

entertain both a Swiss and an ethnic identity. For instance, a German-Swiss

enjoys a pan-Swiss identity that happens to be multilingual and a SwissGerman identity, which is monolingual and ethnic. And there does not seem

to be any problem. Similarly, one can have a pan-Ethiopian identity and an

ethnic identity. An Ogadeni person can have a pan-Ethiopian identity that

would be linked to the Ethiopian state and its democratic institutions and

secondly an ethnic Somali identity. As in Switzerland, where young people

prefer English to their second Swiss language,36 English can be the language

of the bilingual people in Ethiopia.

DOMESTICATING ENGLISH

“English is the Kiswahili of the World” and “To reject English is foolishness, not patriotism.”37

Ethiopia has wasted scarce resources, many lives, and valuable time in

communal conflicts for over half-a-century. After victory in 1991, the Eritrean and Tigrayan nationalists entered a world that is rapidly shrinking.

All parochialism, official and reactive, including the ever-staggering Oromo

nationalism, appears to belong to the bygone era of the 20th century—the

bloodiest century in history. Given the new global reality, the obsession with

nation-building itself is becoming anachronistic. And English, which can offer Ethiopians all the avenues to economic and social advancement, is the

language that really matters today and it deserves to be domesticated.

Although Amharic’s role as a lingua franca will remain intact in the

foreseeable future, it cannot prevent English from assuming a more visible role in the country. Even seemingly well-entrenched languages such as

Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, and French appear to be losing ground,

albeit incrementally, to English. Against the forces of globalization, which

are carried by the ubiquitous English, only few languages can survive.

Out of the 6,809 spoken languages around the world only 600 (10%) are

secure.38

Ethiopia has to be as pragmatic as many European and Asian countries that have their eyes on economic progress. For instance, despite serious efforts to keep its linguistic identity, Iceland has found English, which

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 245

dominates its media, science, and commerce,39 unstoppable. The Nordic

countries may accept English as their primary language.40 The Dutch Minister of Education has proposed that English supplant Dutch in academic

institutions.41 The Danish Minister of Education even went further to state

that English has advanced from being the “first foreign language” to being

“second mother tongue” of the Danes. A Sri Lankan government minister too

sloganized “English for all” Third World countries.42 As such, Ethiopia too

will have to jettison the obsession with linguistic nationalism, which has partially been responsible for its political ailment, and enhance the functional

relevance of English.

Many states, as attached to their languages as Ethiopia, prefer the economic to the cultural pie. Even major economic power houses like Japan are

more pragmatic than Ethiopia. In fact, some Japanese believe that making

English their official language can make them competitive in the contemporary global economy.43 Similar arguments have been advanced for Korea.44

Rather than making Mandarin competitive with English, some Chinese are

promoting the idea of making English China’s second language.45

Once far more regional than Amharic, Russian is giving way to English.

In the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, English is elbowing Russian

out as the regional lingua franca. Now the Central Asians have been allying

themselves more closely with their co-ethnics in Anatolia. However, panTurkish identity has been historically weak. Turkey itself has yearned for

Westernization by, among others, dropping the Arabic script for Latin script.

Nor does Turkish have the wherewithal to challenge English as the lingua

franca of the region. Similarly, the sooner Ethiopia accepts the ubiquitous

English and augments its role in its society the better.

By creating a free market of languages where all, including English, can

compete, Ethiopia can allow the rise of a less-controversial lingua franca;

and that language may be Amharic, Oromiffa, English, or any of the languages in the market. With 11 official languages, for instance, South Africa

has created a free market of languages where English has won. Similar measures were taken in multilingual Singapore where four languages (Chinese,

Tamil, Malay, and English) are accorded official standing. And yet, English

stands on top of them as a language of education and national integration.

Even where Swahili is a successful lingua franca, Kenya and Tanzania cannot avoid the ubiquitous role of English. As such keeping English at arm’s

length may be too perilous for Ethiopia.

The prestige of French was so solid that enshrining its official/national

status in the French constitution was superfluous. However, with its precipitately fading regional and global prestige, the French state in 1992 decided

to enshrine it in Article 2 of the Constitution, stating that “La langue de la

Republic est le franc ´ ¸ais.” Indeed, French is losing ground even in the Francophone countries that are adopting English either in lieu of or in tandem

with French. Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Senegal

246 A. Abbay

are cases in point. In 1996, Rwanda made English, along with French and

Kinyarwanda, an official language. The 1998 constitution in the DRC gave

English an official status on a par with French. In Senegal, too, French is

phasing out through both Wolofization and Anglicization. Similarly, Ethiopia

needs to learn quickly the diminishing relevance of its vernaculars and the

utility of domesticating English, currently an innocent medium of communication, which is not tainted with ethnic jingoism.

Thus, using a pragmatic and functionalist approach, Ethiopia can refashion its collective identity that can be cherished by all of its ethnic components. The functionalist approach can enable the people to see what is good

and what is bad and, above all, what is feasible. They can learn lessons from

the old system in the country, which ran its course in 1991. The year 1991,

as a landmark, has revealed three things: The Amhara hegemony failed to

bring about a nation-state; the 30-year war of independence in Eritrea has

given the Eritrean people neither democracy nor prosperity; and the 17-year

ethnic nationalist revolution in Tigray has yielded benefits that are not commensurate with the dear price the Tigryans paid. In the case of the latter

two, armed struggle became an article of faith that could not be questioned.

No one dared to weigh the costs/benefits of the protracted wars.

The functionalist approach should focus on the common values, shared

fate, and what it is that makes Ethiopia a polity. Identifying and focusing on

the small core of shared values is vital to the health of a diverse, and yet cohesive, Ethiopia. Excessive emphasis on historical arguments may be unhealthy

for a forward-looking country. For instance, romanticizing the egalitarian

gada system of the Oromo past is as hallucinatory as the colonial question

was for Eritrea or a homogenous nation-state was for the “Solomonic” rulers.

Clinging to such zero-sum games is not only failing to learn from the costly

Eritrean and Tigrayan nationalist wars but repeating past mistakes.

CONCLUSION: A NEW LINGUISTIC ORDER

Globalization, which has come to the Horn of Africa after identity politics

wasted crucial time, energy, and limited resources for over half-a-century,

has made the process of nation-state building, along with its dual pillars

of homogenization and centralization as well as the reactive ethnoregional

nationalisms obsolete. An important dimension of the globalizing world is regional integration that may be essential particularly for small political fabrics

such as Djibouti and Eritrea, whose raison d’etat ´ may be difficult to explain

outside of the trap of identity politics. Unless the people of the Horn of Africa

jointly fight their common enemy of poverty, prevent jingoistic wars and realize that they have a collective future, they may be sidelined by a world that is

prospering and globalizing. Thus, by sharply breaking with identity politics,

Ethiopia can construct a more optimistic and forward-looking ideology.

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 247

Central to identity politics is the language issue that can be solved/

managed by adopting a policy of a free market of languages, where all languages, including English, struggle for survival and nature selects the fittest.

The fittest language or languages would be owned by none and can be domesticated by all, in the process breaking the ethnic barriers. Such languages,

which are bound to be ethnic neutral and less divisive, would deny political entrepreneurs the opportunity to manipulate the potentially lethal and

explosive energy of languages for their selfish political ends. The Darwinian

approach, however, should not necessarily mean that winner-takes-all. The

security and survival of the smaller languages can be guaranteed by encouraging ethnic elites to pursue a promotional policy of their respective

languages.

Ethiopia needs to disentangle itself from nationalism, in all its formats,

and enter the global village where the human family appears headed to

speak one language, English. An Ethiopia that deflects both linguistic domination and its nemesis aggressive linguistic counternationalism by adopting

a political system of no language policy can be a multilingual habitus with a

placid social and political environment. A postethnic Ethiopia and the Horn

of Africa need a break with the past, to bury their mistakes for good, and

focus on the future. Better to face the future, with all its uncertainties, than

to recycle the past. Failure to learn from past mistakes is a travesty and to

repeat them insanity.

NOTES

1. In order to establish legitimacy, the Amhara rulers of Shewa who, in 1270 took over power

from the Cushitic rulers of Lasta (Zagwe Dynasty), claimed that they descended from the Semitic rulers

of Axum. Harnessing the myth of the union of the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba and Israeli King Solomon,

they claimed that they were restorers of the “Solomonic” Dynasty that started with Menelik, the supposed

progeny of Sheba and Solomon, who, according to the mythology, became the first Ethiopian king of

the “Solomonic” Dynasty. The last monarch, Haile Selassie I claimed that he was the 251st “Solomonic”

Emperor of the country.

2. Ted Gurr, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs 79(3): 52–64 (2000).

3. Neil Smith, “Introduction: Altered States,” in Heather Gautney, Omar Dahbour, Ashley Dawson,

and Neil Smith, eds., Democracy, States, and the Struggle for Global Justice (New York and London:

Routledge, 2009), 1–16. For an opposite view that says globalization neither kills the nation-state nor

homogenizes humanity, see Chester D. Haskell, “Language and Globalization: Why National Policies

Matter,” in Steven J. Baker, ed., Language Policy: Lessons from Global Models (Monterey, CA: Monterey

Institute of International Studies, 2002), 3–6.

4. Globalization is a multifaceted phenomenon that has engulfed Ethiopia in the form of popular

culture, political culture (democratization, human rights, etc.), social culture (beliefs, values, lifestyles,

etc.), economic culture (capital investment, etc.), information technology (Internet, social media, etc.),

religious culture (militant Protestantism, especially in its Pentecostal version), etc. And the principal carrier

of globalization is the ubiquitous English. A microcosm of this phenomenon occurred during the first

half of the first millennium C.E. The Horn of Africa, along with the Mediterranean World, was washed

over by Hellenism. In the process, the Axumite society, in what is today northern Ethiopia, domesticated

Greek that was the principal carrier of Hellenism so much so that its gold, silver, and bronze coins were

inscribed primarily in Greek; so were the celebratory victorious military campaigns narrated on stone

inscriptions.

248 A. Abbay

5. Peter L. Berger, “Introduction: the Cultural Dynamics of Globalization,” in Peter L. Berger and

Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2002), 1–16.

6. Taddesse Tamrat, “Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn,” in Roland Oliver, ed., The Cambridge

History of Africa 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72–74. See also Donald N. Levin,

Greater Ethiopia: the Evolution of a Multiethnic Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).

7. Merid W. Aregay, “Political Geography of Ethiopia at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century,”

in IV Congresso Internazionale di Studi Etiopici, Tomo I (Roma: Academei Lincei, 1972), 620–22.

8. Donald Crummey, “Society and Ethnicity in the Politics of Christian Ethiopia during the Zamana

Mesafint,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 8(2): 271 (1975).

9. Samuel Gobat, Journal of Three Years’ Residence in Abyssinia (M. W. Dowd, 1851; reprinted

in New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), 279.

10. Abraham Demoz, “Problems of Terminology in Modern Amharic,” in IV Congresso Internazionale di Studi Etiopici, Tom II (Roma: Academei Lincei, 1974), 215.

11. Edward Ullendorf and Abraham Demoz, “Two Letters from the Emperor Yohannes of Ethiopia

to Queen Victoria and Lord Granville,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London:

University of London, 1969), 135–42.

12. For instance, the preeminent linguist and one of the founders of the Amharic Department in

the Haile Selassie I University, now Addis Ababa University, the late Abraham Demoz, was known for

being a “Tigre.” However, few people knew, or cared to know, that he was from Akkele Guzai, Eritrea.

For the non-Tigrinya-speaking Ethiopians, though, anyone who spoke Tigrinya was just a “Tigre,” an

appellation that the Eritrean political actors abhor. Postindependence Eritrea has come up with the name

“Tigrinya” for its Tigrinya-speaking population. Rather than sharing “Tigrayan” with their kin south of the

river Mareb, they prefer the name “Tigrinya” for both their language and people. In uncommon deviation

from the government position, an Eritrean ex-combatant and a writer rejected the appellation: “‘Nya’ ... is

a sound and a grammatical conjugation that has intruded from Amharic into our language. The language

we speak should be known as lisane Habesha or lisane Tigray. The people who speak the language

should be known as ‘Tigrayans’ or ‘Habesha,’ not ‘Tigrinya’ because, grammatically, it does not make

sense” (Interview: Abba Yisaaq Gabre-Iyesus, Asmara, 12 July, 1994).

13. “AB,” interview, Asmara, 22 June, 1994. A former EPLF combatant who was a high-ranking

government official at the time of the interview, “AB” preferred to remain anonymous.

14. Yonas Mesfun Asfaha, Jeanne Kurvers, and Sjaak Kroom, “Literacy and Script Attitudes in

Multilingual Eritrea,” Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(2): 223–40 (2008).

15. Bahru Zewde, “The Changing Fortunes of the Amharic Language: Lingua Franca or Instrument

of Domination?” in Verena Boll, Denis Nosnitsin, Thomas Rave, Wolbert Smidt, and Evgenia Sokolinskaia,

eds., Studia Aethiopical In Honor of Siegbert Uhlig on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Wiesbaden:

Harrasswitz Verlag, 2004), 303–18.

16. Swahili is not a language that belongs to a politically dominant ethnic group in Africa and yet

it is the official and national language of Tanzania. English, Portuguese, and French, in Anglophone, Lusophone, and Francophone Africa, respectively, are colonial languages appropriated in order to maintain

unity and to preserve national integrity. The anticolonial struggle in India relied upon English, not Hindi,

and pan-Indian identity is solid.

17. The Nigerian constitution gives Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo official status, co-equal with English.

In practice, the latter performs all official duties. Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland enshrines Gaelic as

the first official language and English as the second language of the Republic. In practice, English remains

functional with Gaelic enjoying symbolism. The constitution in Belarus too establishes Belarusian as the

official language and, yet, it is merely symbolic. Russian is functional.

18. Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (Paris: Calman-Levy, 1882). ´

19. Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States (Boulder: Westview Press, 1977), 148.

20. See Negarit Gazetta, Articles 13–15, 1944, cited in Robert Cooper, “Government Language

Policy,” in Marvin Lionel Bender, Jean Donald Bowen, Robert Leon Cooper, and Charles Albert Ferguson,

eds., Language in Ethiopia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 189.

21. Afework Gebre Iyesus, Dagmawi Atie Menelik (Rome, 1908, republished in Addis Adaba:

United Printers, 1973), 54.

22. Hearing: Statement by the Secretary General of the Unionist Party, Tedla Bairu, Four Power

Inquiry Commission, 17 Dec., 1947. Appendix 121. Foreign Office 371–69365.

23. Hearing: Statement by the spokesman of the LPP to the Inquiry Commission, 18 Nov., 1947.

Appendix 123. Foreign Office 371–69365.

Multilingualism & Ethiopia 249

24. American Consul, Asmara, to the Department of State, Washington, DC Despatch No. 87. 16

Jan., 1953.

25. Walde-Mariam, “Ertra na man,” (“Eritrea for whom[?]),” Part 4, Nay Ertra Semunawi Gazeta

(May 1947), 4, emphasis in the original.

26. US Embassy, Addis Ababa, to the Department of State, Washington, DC, Despatch No. 259, 13

April, 1951.

27. Yemane Ghebreab, head of the political department of the government, said that “We look

at colonialism more favorably than other peoples in Africa and Asia,” cited in Ian Spears, Civil War in

African States: the Search for Security (Boulder and London: FIRSTFORUM PRESS), 4.

28. Marvin Lionel Bender, “Ethiopian Language Policy 1974–1981,” Anthropological Linguistics

27(3): 273 (1985).

29. Patrice Lumumba, in Eyamba G. Bokamba, “D. R. Congo: Language and ‘Authentic’ Nationalism,” in Andrew Simpson, ed., Language and National Identity in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2008), 223.

30. Tracy X. Karner, “Ideology and Nationalism: The Finnish Move to Independence, 1809–1919,”

Ethnic and Racial Studies 14(2): 152–69 (1991).

31. Fiona McLaughlin, “Senegal: The Emergence of a National Lingua Franca,” in Andrew Simpson,

ed., Language and National Identity in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 86–87.

32. Simpson and Oyelade, “Nigeria: Ethno-linguistic Competition in the Giant of Africa,” Andrew

Simpson, ed., Language and National Identity in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 182–3.

33. Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?, 20–21.

34. Bokamba, “D. R. Congo,” 227.

35. Zewde, “The Changing Fortunes,” 304.

36. Robert B. Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 80.

37. Julius Nyerere, as cited in F. Topan, “Tanzania: The Development of Swahili as a National and

Official Language,” in Andrew Simpson, ed., Language and National Identity in Africa (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2008), 258, 262.

38. Joseph Lo Bianco, “Real World Language Politics and Policy,” in Steven J. Baker, ed., Language

Policy; Lessons from Global Models (Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2002), 11.

39. Lars S. Vikor, “Northern Europe: Language as Prime Markers of Ethnic and National Identity,”

in Stephen Barbour and Cathie Carmichael, eds., Language and Nationalism in Europe (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2000), 125.

40. Ibid., 128.

41. Robert B. Howell, “The Low Countries: A Study in Sharply Contrasting Nationalisms,” in Stephen

Barbour and Cathie Carmichael, eds., Language and Nationalism in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2000), 146.

42. Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism, 9.

43. Shoichi Kobayashi, “English Can Save Japan,” The Japan Times (3 Aug. 1999), 16.

44. “Can English Save Japan?” The Korea Herald (24 Jan. 2000).

45. Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism, 30.

Alemseged Abbay is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, Frostburg State University, Frostburg, Maryland. He teaches the modern history of

Africa and the Middle East as well as genocide and mass violence. His research

interests are identity politics and comparative ethnic and racial studies. His work

has been published in the Journal of East African Studies, Journal of Modern

African Studies, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Africa, and African Affairs.