When coming to Ethiopia, many people expect English to be an official language and are surprised to learn that, in contrast to other countries in East Africa, English is not among the official languages. Ethiopia is probably one of the oldest independent states in history. The country successfully fought and prevented a colonialization and could therefore preserve its own languages. Ethiopia’s official language is Amharic (Amharigna) and its origin goes back to 2000 years ago. Amharic belongs to the Semitic language family, which also comprises Arabic and Hebrew. Besides Amharic, there are around 80 other languages and 200 dialects spoken in Ethiopia, as for example the languages Tigrigna, Wolaytigna, Somali and Oromigna. However, Amharic represents the official language and is spoken by a quarter of Ethiopians population, with around 22 million speakers.