The People Of SNNPRs

Nations & Nationalities

The SNNPRS is one of the Federal Regional States of the country known for its extraordinarily rich diversity of people, inhabiting more than 56 distinct Nations, Nationalities and Peoples that have their own culture, language, norms and lifestyle and thus the region has assumed a name “museum of nationalities” .

According to the Ethiopian government constitution “Nations, Nationalities or people”…is a group of people who have or share large measure of a common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief in a common and related identities, a common psychological make up, and who inhabit an identifiable, predominantly common territory.

Languages

The different ethnic groups inhabiting in the Region speaks as many languages and dialects from all the four major language groups (Omotic, Cushitic, Semitic, and Nilo-Saharan) used in the country. The region is unique in possessing these entire four-language groups specially the Omotic language is mainly spoken in the SNNPRS. In the Region there are 28 ethnic groups who speak and have origin of Omotic language group, 19 Cushitic, eight Nilo-Saharan and two Semitic (click Here to download a document about the language & nationalities of SNNPRS ).