Afaan Oromo

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Ethiopian flag
Afaan Oromo front matter

Preface

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The Oromo language (also known as Afaan Oromoo and Oromiffa) is a Cushitic language spoken by about 50 million people in Ethiopia. This Wikibook is intended to provide an introduction to Oromo grammar and lexicon. Nama bifa gurracha Aduunyaati.

In an effort to aid in self-study, audio files have been embedded so that the reader may develop an ear for the spoken language and practice pronunciation.

Few resources are available, either in book form or online, for learning Oromo. It is my hope that this collection of lessons will prove valuable to those exploring the language, especially for Peace Corps volunteers, VSO volunteers, and other English speakers living in Oromia. I have tried to ensure that all Oromo words herein are correctly spelled and translated, all sentences grammatically correct, and all grammar points accurately explained. However, seeing that these lessons were compiled by a student of the language rather than a native speaker, I expect the errors to be many. I am indebted to my tutor, Fekadu Kano, for providing many translations, edits, and the sound bites for the text.

Contents

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Cardinal and ordinal numbers, fractions
Basic sentence structure, placement of modifiers
Subject, direct object, possessive, and interrogative pronouns
Verb conjugation, verb groups, morphology, affirmative and negative
Gender, number, definiteness, nominative case
Gender, number, with pronouns, case and definiteness, participles
In the affirmative and negative
Adverbs of manner, time, place, and degree; telling time
Imperative, jussive tense; other forms of requests; responding
Prepositions, postpositions, conjunctions, directions
Comparatives, preferences, superlatives, expressing opinions
Continuous, perfect, sequential actions
Causitive, reflexive, passive voice
Cases and suffixes, verbal nouns (gerunds)
Sequential actions, gerundive, simultaneous actions, time words
Adverbial, relative, subjunctive, if-then statements, conditional
Irregular verbs, noun case suffixes table, summary of verb forms (present, past, gerundive, jussive, subjunctive, subordinate, participle, if-thens, reflexive, passive, pres. cont., past cont., conditional, causative) with examples, list of plurals (nouns and adjectives)