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Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of the Horn of Africa.
The first documented use of the name "Ethiopia" from Greek name Αἰθίοψ, was in the 4th century during the reign of Aksumite king Ezana. There were three ethnolinguistic groups in the Kingdom of Aksum; Semitic, Cushitic, and Nilo-Saharan (ancestors of the modern-day Kunama people and Nara people). The Kingdom of Aksum remained a geopolitically influential entity until the decline of its capital — also named Axum — beginning in the 7th century. Nevertheless, the core Aksumite civilization was preserved and continued into the successive Zagwe dynasty. By this time, new ethnic groups emerged – the Tigrayans and Amhara people. During the Solomonic period, the latter established major political and cultural influence in the Horn of Africa. In the Late Middle Ages, Muslim states were established, including the Sultanate of Ifat, and its successor the Adal Sultanate. Discontent with territory and religious dominance led to intense war between the Ethiopian Empire, the Christian state, (consisting of the Amhara, Tigrayan, Soddo Gurage, and Agaw people ethnic groups) and the Muslim state Adal Sultanate (consisting of Semitic speaking Harari people formally known as the Harla people, and the Argobba people). During the 1600s, there were Oromo migrations of the Oromo people from the south into the highlands and also alongside the Somalis into Adal or what was known as "Hararghe" (land of the Hararis).
A period of stability and peace continued through the Gondarine period in 16th and 17th century, but Ethiopia was divided into de facto autonomous regions in the mid-18th century. During this time, Ethiopia was nominally ruled by an Emperor who functioned as a puppet monarch of various regional lords and noblemen. This era was known as the Zemene Mesafint or "Era of the Princes". Emperor Tewodros II managed to unify the decentralized Ethiopian Empire in 1855 and inaugurated a process of modernization that continued into successive regimes, resurrecting the empire as a regional power.
In the late 19th century during the reign of Menelik II, against the backdrop of the Scramble for Africa, the notion of Ethiopian national integrity was strengthened by Italian efforts at colonization. The Italian invasion engendered a formidable national resistance, culminating in the Battle of Adwa in 1896 which resulted in a major Ethiopian victory against the Italians. The resulting Treaty of Addis Ababa ended the Italo-Ethiopian War, and along with the nation's contemporaneous territorial expansion, largely established the modern-day boundaries of Ethiopia.
Present-day Ethiopia has a diverse population with many different languages and ethnic groups. Ethiopians speak Afro-Asiatic languages (Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages) and Nilo-Saharan languages. The Oromo people, Amhara people, Somali people and Tigrayans make up more than three-quarters (75%) of the population, but there are more than 80 different ethnic groups within Ethiopia. Some of these have as few as 10,000 members.
About 7000 BC, Afro-Asiatic-speaking population namely Cushitic and Omotic languages people grouped in the present day of Ethiopia after which diversification thrived in the area and allowed the other local groups, the Agaw people, Somalis, Oromo people, and numerous Omotic-speaking groups to unify. Originally a hunter gatherers, those people began domesticating indigenous plants thereafter, including the grasses teff, eleusine, enset, root crop, and domestication of cattles and other animals to fill agricultural livelihoods that still contemporary followed. By the late first millennium BC, the Agaws occupied the northern Ethiopian region, as the Sidama people occupied the central and southern parts of Ethiopia, making inaugural historical development of Ethiopia.
Afro-Asiatic languages were present in Africa and the Middle East by the eighth to sixth millennium BCE. This language family includes various modern and extinct African and Asian languages such as Oromo, Somali, Egyptian, Berber, Hausa, Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and Akkadian. Ge'ez was developed around sixth century BCE and evident by inscriptions of contemporary kingdom of D'mt. The language dominance was eclipsed by 1000 AD, but the highland inhabitants used it as written scholar and liturgical language between 300s and 1800s.
Other scholars regard Dʿmt as the result of a union of Afroasiatic-speaking cultures of the Cushitic and Semitic branches; namely, local and Sabaeans from Southern Arabia. However, Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia, is thought to have developed independently from the Sabaean language, one of the South Semitic languages. As early as 2000 BCE, other Semitic speakers were living in Ethiopia and Eritrea where Ge'ez developed.Tamrat, Taddesse (1972) Church and State in Ethiopia: 1270–1527. London: Oxford University Press, pp. 5–13.Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.) (2005) Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, "Ge'ez". Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, p. 732. Sabaean influence is now thought to have been minor, limited to a few localities, and disappearing after a few decades or a century. It may have been a trading or military colony in alliance with the Ethiopian civilization of Dʿmt or some other proto-Axumite state. Politically integrated, the Kingdom of Aksum was emerged independently from at least 100 BC, and its civilization grew from 1st century AD. The kingdom dominated the Red Sea, the Northeast Africa in the present location between northern Ethiopia (Tigray Region), eastern Sudan, Eritrea, South Arabia. It was by far powerful empire and trading nation between Roman Empire and India. The Aksumite lingua franca was Greek language evolved from Hellenistic period in 330–305 BC and officially adopted in the first century. It was soon replaced by Ge'ez in the 4th century. Politically and culturally influenced partially with Byzantine Empire, the Aksumite achieved major historical grounds, Orthodox Tewahedo Christianity introduced and has been state religion in the early 4th century, construction of stone-fitted palace and public buildings, and erection of large obelisks around the capital Axum. These all are milestones that culminate in the rise of Ethiopian identity where the Greek exonym "Ethiopians" came to use by the kingdom under king Ezana's reign in the 4th century. The first century BCE Greek historian Diodorus Siculus claimed the Ethiopian nativity as "true natives", "most pious and righteous" in his record. This assertion resonated by locality of declaring themselves a "Habesha people". His record expounded the nature of Ethiopians, including highly proselytizing to neighboring Egypt. He denoted these people locating in the place superimposed by Nubia and Meroë, connected to the Nile river, having distinct rainy season and wonderful lake.
The successful integration of Agaw and Semitic groups in the north prolonged over millennium and eventually forms Tigrayans and Amhara people. The Zagwe kingdom capital, relocated to Lalibela, and sparked a new cultural life. The most notable churches in this period was constructed with unique rock-hewn architecture. A dominant group, Amhara, continues to expand its territory in so-called Solomonic period after the downfall of Zagwe in 1270, and by the late 13th century, they reached to southern Shewa. Since then, centralized military unit was buildup while frequently engaged war with Sidama kingdom in the west and Muslim population to the east.
One of the most important era for Christian and Muslim insight, and the resultant of religious war was in the mid-16th century of Ethiopian–Adal War, involving the Amhara, Tigrayan and Agaw force allied to the Ethiopian Empire (Abyssinia) and the Muslim states composed mostly of Harari people and Somali people, together forms the Adal Sultanate. The Oromo people additionally took an advantage of the war and occupied much the northern highland zone of the Amhara empire in the Oromo migrations.
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According to the 2007 Ethiopian census and the CIA World Fact Book, the largest are: Oromo language 24,929,567 speakers or 33.8% of the total population; Amharic 21,631,370 or 29.3% (federal working language); Somali language 4,609,274 or 6.2%; Tigrinya 4,324,476 or 5.9%; Sidamo language 4,981,471 or 4%; Wolaytta 1,627,784 or 2.2%; Gurage languages 1,481,783 or 2%; and Afar language 1,281,278 or 1.7%.
. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Widely-spoken foreign languages include Arabic language, English language (major foreign language taught in schools), and Italian language (spoken by an Italian minority).
A large Ethiopian community is also found in Israel, where Ethiopians make up almost 1.9% of the population. Almost the entire community are members of the Beta Israel community. There are also large number of Ethiopian emigrants in Saudi Arabia, Italy, Lebanon, United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden and Australia..
An investigation by Tishkoff et al. (2009) identified fourteen ancestral population clusters which correlate with self-described ethnicity and shared cultural and/or linguistic properties within Africa, in what was the largest autosomal study of the continent at the time. Out of Africa: Penn Geneticist Publishes Largest-Ever Study on African Genetics Revealing Origins, Migration. The Burji, Konso and Beta Israel were sampled from Ethiopia. The Afroasiatic speaking Ethiopians sampled were cumulatively (Fig.5B) found to belong to: 71% in the "Cushitic" cluster, 6% in the "Saharan/Dogon" cluster, 5% in the "Niger Kordofanian" cluster, 3% each in the "Nilo-Saharan" and "Chadic Saharan" cluster, while the balance (12%) of their assignment was distributed among the remnant (9) Associated Ancestral Clusters (AAC's) found in Sub-Saharan Africa. The "Cushitic" cluster was also deemed "closest to the non-African AACs, consistent with an East African migration of modern humans out of Africa or a back-migration of non-Africans into Saharan areas and Eastern Africa."; Supplementary Material
Other studies conducted on Ethiopians belonging to Semitic and Cushitic ethnic groups mostly from the north of the country (Oromo, Amhara, Tigray, and Gurage), estimate approximately 40% of their autosomal ancestry to be derived from an ancient "non-African" back-migration from the Near East and about 60% to be of native African origin (from a population indigenous or "autochthonous" to the Horn of Africa). Pickrell et al. (2014) found that the West Eurasian ancestry peaks in the Amhara and Tigrayans at 49% and 50%, respectively. Walsh, Sandra et al. (2020) which sampled 119 genome-wide-samples of Ethiopian populations similarly outlined the proportion of West Asia, their data showed that: “The masked West Asian component measures the proportion of West Asian ancestry in each population. The Amhara and Oromo populations have the highest amount (54 and 51%, respectively), Wolayta and Somali show 43 and 44%, respectively, while in contrast the Gumuz show the low amount of 0.7%. These values agree with previous estimates."
In characterizing the ancestry, Pagani, Luca et al. (2012) noted this non-African component is estimated to have entered the Horn of Africa roughly ~3,000 years ago, and was found to be similar to the populations in the Levant. The paper goes on to say that this coincides with the introduction of Ethio-Semitic languages into the region. Gallego Llorente, M et al. (2015) similarly discovered extensive admixture in Eastern Africa from a population closely related to early Neolithic farmers from the Near-East/Anatolia.
An entry by Hodgson et al. (2014) found a distinct African ancestral component in Afro-Asiatic populations in the Horn (dubbed "Ethiopic"), as well as a distinct non-African Western Eurasian component (dubbed "Ethio-Somali"), that is most likely pre-agricultural. Their data also revealed Nilo-Saharan ancestry in Afro-Asiatic populations, and "Ethiopic" ancestry in Nilo-Saharan populations, suggesting an intricate history of contact in the region. However, the Ethiopian Nilo-Saharan groups and the Endogamy Aari blacksmith caste were found to have little to no Eurasian admixture.; Supplementary Text S1: Affinities of the Ethio-Somali ancestry component Aari blacksmiths may descend from the "Ethiopic" hunter-gatherers who were assimilated as other populations expanded into the region, or they may be a subset of a single population recently marginalized for their occupation. According to Hollfelder et al. (2017): "The Nilotic peoples have stayed largely un-admixed, which appears to be the case in Ethiopia too, where a similar observation has been made for the Gumuz, an Ethiopian Nilotic population that is genetically similar to South Sudan Nilotes. Northeast African Nilotes showed some distinction from an ancient Ethiopian individual (Mota, found in the Mota Cave in the southern Ethiopian highlands), which suggests population structure between northeast and eastern Africa already 4,500 years ago. The modern-day Nilotic groups are likely direct descendants of past populations living in northeast Africa many thousands of years ago."
López, Saioa et al. (2021) found that when comparing Ethiopians to external populations only, Nilo-Saharan speakers (as well as the Chabu, Dassanech, and Karo) in the southwest shared more recent ancestry with Bantu and Nilotic speakers, while Afro-Asiatic speakers in the northeast shared more recent ancestry with Egyptians and other West Eurasians. Overall, the study revealed that groups belonging to the Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic branches of Afro-Asiatic in the region, still showed high genetic similarity to each other on average.
Haplogroup J has been found at a frequency of approximately 18% in Ethiopians, but with a much higher prevalence among the Amhara, where it has been found to exist at levels as high as 35%, of which about 94% (17% of total) is of the type J1, while 6% (1% of total) is of J2 type. On the other hand, 26% of the individuals sampled in the Arsi Zone control portion by Moran et al. (2004) were also found to belong to Haplogroup J.
Another fairly prevalent lineage in Ethiopia belongs to Haplogroup A, occurring at a frequency of about 17% within Ethiopia, it is almost all characterized by its downstream sub lineage of A3b2 (M13). Restricted to Africa, and mostly found along the Rift Valley from Ethiopia to Cape Town, Haplogroup A represents the deepest branch in the Human Y- Chromosome phylogeny.
Finally, Haplogroup T was found at approximately 4% and Haplogroup B at approximately 3%, which make up the remainder of the Y-DNA Haplogroups found within Ethiopia.
Passarino et al. (1998) suggested that:
"Caucasoid" gene flow into the Ethiopian gene pool occurred predominantly through males. Conversely, the Niger–Congo contribution to the Ethiopian population occurred mainly through females.While there is debate among the scientific community of what exactly constitutes "Caucasoid gene flow", the same study further stated:
"Indeed, Ethiopians do not seem to result only from a simple combination of proto-Niger–Congo and Middle Eastern genes. Their African component cannot be completely explained by that of present-day Niger–Congo speakers, and it is quite different from that of the Khoisan. Thus, a portion of the current Ethiopian gene pool may be the product of in situ differentiation from an ancestral gene pool."
Scott et al. (2005) similarly observed that the Ethiopian population is almost equally divided between individuals that carry Eurasian maternal lineages, and those that belong to African clades. They describe the presence of Eurasian clades in the country as sequences that "are thought to be found in high numbers in Ethiopia either as a result of substantial gene flow into Ethiopia from Eurasia (Chen et al., 2000; Richards et al., 2003), or as a result of having undergone several branching events in demic diffusion, acting as founder lineages for non-African populations". The researchers further found no association between regional origin of subjects or language family (Semitic/Cushitic) and their mitochondrial type:
The haplogroup distribution amongst all subjects (athletes and controls) from different geographical regions of Ethiopia is displayed in Table 3. As can be seen graphically in Fig. 3, the mtDNA haplogroup distribution of each region is similar, with all regions displaying similar proportions of African 'L' haplogroups (Addis Ababa: 59%, Arsi: 50%, Shewa: 44%, Other: 57%). No association was found between regional origin of subjects and their mitochondrial type (v2=8.5, 15 df, P=0.9). Similarly, the mtDNA haplogroup distribution of subjects (athletes and controls) speaking languages from each family is shown in Table 3. Again there was no association between language family and mitochondrial type (v2=5.4, 5 df, P=0.37). As can be seen in Fig. 4, the haplogroup distributions of each language family are again very similar.
In addition, Musilová et al. (2011) observed significant maternal ties between its Ethiopian and other Horn African samples with its Western Asian samples; particularly in terms of the HV1b mtDNA haplogroup. The authors noted:
"Detailed phylogeography of HV1 sequences shows that more recent demographic upheavals likely contributed to their spread from West Arabia to East Africa, a finding concordant with archaeological records suggesting intensive maritime trade in the Red Sea from the sixth millennium BC onwards."
According to Černý et al. (2008), many Ethiopians also share specific maternal lineages with areas in Yemen and other parts of Northeast Africa. The authors indicate that:
"The most frequent haplotype in west coastal Yemen is 16126–16362, which is found not only in the Ethiopian highlands but also in Somalia, lower Egypt and at especially high frequency in the . The Tihama share some West Eurasian haplotypes with Africans, e.g. J and K with Ethiopians, Somali and Egyptians."Schuenemann V. J et al. (2017) found that when it came to the maternal background of 125 Ethiopians, over >60% was composed of African L lineages, while these lineages were up to 20% for the 100 Modern Egyptians.
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