| Yemsa | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Ethiopia |
| Region | Oromia Region & SNNPR |
| Native speakers | 92,200 [1] (2007 census) |
| Language family |
Afro-Asiatic
|
| Dialects |
Fuga
|
| Writing system | Ethiopic/Latin |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jnj |
Yemsa is the language of the Yem people of the former Kingdom of Yamma, known as Kingdom of Janjero to the Amhara. It is a member of the Omotic group of languages, most closely related to Kaffa. It is distinctive in having a several levels of lexicon contingent on social hierarchy, rather like Japanese and Javanese. The estimated number of speakers varies wildly from about 1000 (Bender,1976) to half a million (Aklilu, 1993).
Fuga dialect is distinct enough to perhaps be a different language.