Afan Oromo and Code-switching - Mixing Amharic into Afan Oromo A Case Study of the Relationship between Afan Oromo (Oromo language) and Amharic/Amhara Language in Ethiopia

Abstract: Abstract Tesfa Abdisa Afan Oromo and Code-switching - Mixing Amharic into Afan Oromo Kandidatuppsats SOCK10 15 hp Handledare – Axel Fredholm Sociologiska institutionen, höstterminen 2023 This study is about code-switching or mixing Amharic with Afan Oromo in Ethiopia. The writer of this essay was born and grew up in Oromia and lived with the issue in question. This language question was created in the writer´s mind since childhood, as it is true for many others. This drama was partially welcomed as something new, cool, nice…etc. and partially feared what the future of Afan Oromo would be if the situation continued uncontrolled. Despite the conflict getting magnified time after time, the majority of Oromos, Afan Oromo speakers had no clue when and why or how the drama began and how to solve it. This has become about life and death struggle between the two languages. Even if both Amharic and Afan Oromo are two distinguished languages, they lived side by side for centuries before the birth of the new political and language policy. Though the embedded political agenda was the original cause of the conflict, the social climbers, the portion of Oromo who consciously and unconsciously mixes, elites and wannabes are blamed for having sustained the conflict. For this study, a qualitative method was used including interviews and observations. The result of the study showed that the cause of mixing or code-switching has a historical background to the Abyssinian policy of empire and territorial expansion, language policy, Amhara re-settlers, religious sectors, and immigration policy but Afan Oromo remains the prevalent language spoken in Oromia. And due to this kind of language, disconnections between the masses and the upper classes and misunderstandings and ignoring each other is a common problem. The Oromos seem to be determined not to accept the government’s desire to unify the nations under one language, Amharic.