Yem people

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The Yem are a people living in southern Ethiopia. They are also called by their neighbors as the Janjero, but the Yem consider this exonym derogatory, since it sounds similar to the Amharic word "zinjero" which means "monkey". Their number was not definitely known until recently, as Aklilu Yilma states, "Bender gives the estimate as '1000' (Bender 1976: 4), whereas the Ethnologue reports the figure of '1000-4000' speakers of Yemsa (Grimes 1992:257). The report of the Central Statistical Office gives the 1984 census figures of the Yem people as 34,951 (Central Statistical Office 1991:61), but this census seems to comprise only the Fofa area."^[1] The 2006 CSA report revealed that the population is estimated to be about 86,000.

Their native language is Yemsa, one of the Omotic languages, although many as of 1990 only speak Oromo or Amharic.