Open Access Library Journal How to cite this paper: Midega, M. (2014) Official Language Choice in Ethiopia: Means of Inclusion or Exclusion? Open Access Library Journal, 1: e932. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1100932 Official Language Choice in Ethiopia: Means of Inclusion or Exclusion? Milkessa Midega Dire Dawa University, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia Email: milkessam@gmail.com Received 31 July 2014; revised 19 September 2014; accepted 22 October 2014 Copyright © 2014 by author and OALib. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Official language choice in a multilingual polity is a challenging phenomenon. One of such polities, Ethiopia, took “historical accident” justifications for grant to select its official language which un- equivocally disregards its own linguistic diversities. Amharic language has been arbitrarily desig- nated as the sole official language of Ethiopia since the making of modern Ethiopia. This piece uses government documents and other literature to examine Ethiopia’s official language choice and its consequences. Overall, the findings show that the knowledge of Amharic language remained de- terminant in order to access federal government institutions thereby serving as a means of exclu- sion of non-official language speakers, such as Oromo, the largest ethnic group in the country. This work thus suggests rethinking official language of Ethiopia. Keywords Afaan Oromoo, Amharic, Federal Government, Official Language Subject Areas: Linguistics, Politics 1. Introduction Ethiopia is a divided polity home to diverse groups; particularly its ethno-linguistic diversity has significant in- fluence on the country’s political, economic, social and cultural systems [1]. Currently, the number of languages spoken in Ethiopia is estimated to more than eighty, where the choice of official language at the federal level will exactly pose a challenge. Ethiopia’s Federal Constitution [2] selects only Amharic as federal official lan- guage and maintains its dominant status throughout federal jurisdictions. The major achievement of the contemporary federal constitution, as compared to previous constitutions, is the inclusion of the provision that bestows opportunity to Members of the Federation to determine their respective official languages [2]. In spite of this success, the framers of the constitution seem to have neglected the factual numerical status of the other competing languages particularly Afaan Oromoo in the choice of federal official