Locale Am Et

Reference data for the Amharic (Ethiopia) locale — endonym አማርኛ (ኢትዮጵያ), written in the Ethiopic script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: am-ET
• ISO 639-1: am
• ISO 639-3: amh
• Script: Ethi (Ethiopic)
• Region: ET (Ethiopia)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 33,000,000
• L2 (additional): 25,000,000
• L1+L2 (total): 58,000,000

Base locale

This is a regional variant of Locale Am 001 (Amharic), the base/macro locale for this language.

Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).

• one — i = 0 or n = 1 (e.g. 0, 1)
• other — everything else (e.g. 2~17, 100, 1000, 10000, …)

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Apply Locale Am 001 with the conventions of Ethiopia.

• Calendar and clock: the Ethiopian calendar and Ethiopian clock are used officially and in daily life; show Gregorian dates alongside for international content.
• Formats: birr (ብር); dates in Amharic month names (መስከረም, ጥቅምት, ኅዳር, ...); decimal point.
• Context: Amharic is the federal working language; other Ethiopian languages (Oromo, Tigrinya, Somali) are official regionally. Provide complete Amharic content.
• Tone: polite and respectful, with titles and greetings.

Common pitfalls

• Using Gregorian dates only on Ethiopian forms.
• Mixing Tigrinya or Geez forms.
• The general pitfalls in Locale Am 001 also apply.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Unicode CLDR locale data for number, date, and currency formats (https://cldr.unicode.org)