Afar, also known as , , or , is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch, primarily spoken by the Afar people, native to parts of Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is an official language in Ethiopia; and a national language in Djibouti and Eritrea. Afar is officially written in the Latin script and has over 2.6 million speakers.
Classification
Afar is classified within the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. It is further categorized in the Lowland East Cushitic sub-group, along with Saho and Somali. Its closest relative is the Saho language. It is also one of the broadcasting languages of the Radio Television of Djibouti public network.
In Eritrea, Afar is recognized as one of nine national languages which formally enjoy equal status although Tigrinya and Arabic are by far of greatest significance in official usage. There are daily broadcasts on the national radio and a translated version of the Eritrean constitution. In education, however, Afar speakers prefer Arabic – which many of them speak as a second language – as the language of instruction.
In the Afar Region of Ethiopia, Afar is also recognized as an official working language. Since 2020, Afar is one of the five official working languages of Ethiopia.
Phonology
Consonants
The consonants of the Afar language in the standard orthography are listed below in angle brackets (preceded by the IPA notation):
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|+ Consonants or lose its retroflexion as in certain dialects.
Syntax
As in most other Cushitic languages, the basic word order in Afar is subject–object–verb.
In the early 1970s, two Afar intellectuals and nationalists, Dimis and Redo, formalized the Afar alphabet. Known as Qafar Feera, the orthography is based on the Latin script.
Officials from the Institut des Langues de Djibouti, the Eritrean Ministry of Education, and the Ethiopian Afar Language Studies and Enrichment Center have since worked with Afar linguists, authors and community representatives to select a standard orthography for Afar from among the various existing writing systems used to transcribe the language.
|-
! IPA !! Djibouti,<br>Ethiopia !! Eritrea
|-
| /a/ || colspan=2|A a
|-
| /b/ || colspan=2|B b
|-
| /t/ || colspan=2|T t
|-
| /s/ || colspan=2|S s
|-
| /e/ || colspan=2|E e
|-
| /ħ/ || C c || X x
|-
| /k/ || colspan=2|K k
|-
| /ɖ/ || X x || Dh dh
|-
| /i/ || colspan=2|I i
|-
| /d/ || colspan=2|D d
|-
| /ʕ/ || Q q || C c
|-
| /r/ || colspan=2|R r
|-
| /f/ || colspan=2|F f
|-
| /g/ || colspan=2|G g
|-
| /o/ || colspan=2|O o
|-
| /l/ || colspan=2|L l
|-
| /m/ || colspan=2|M m
|-
| /n/ || colspan=2|N n
|-
| /u/ || colspan=2|U u
|-
| /w/ || colspan=2|W w
|-
| /h/ || colspan=2|H h
|-
| /j/ || colspan=2|Y y
|}
Long vowels are represented by doubling. The letters P p, J j, V v and the digraphs Ch ch, Kh kh, Sh sh