Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 24, 2026

Yemsa language

Yemsa is the language of the Yem people of the former Kingdom of Yamma, known as the Kingdom of Janjero traditionally. It is a member of the Omotic group of languages, most closely related to Kafa. It is distinctive in having different systems of vocabulary depending on social status, rather like Japanese and Javanese. The estimated number of speakers varies wildly from about 1000 to half a million. The ISO 639-3 system for assigning standardized codes to languages has faced criticism for perpetuating the use of the term Janjero despite its prejudicial origin; the Yem language is coded as jnj as opposed to a mnemonic derived from the preferred name of the language.

Last revised
Jun 24, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
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259 w
Citations
3
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Yem
Yemsa
Native toEthiopia
RegionOromia Region & Central Ethiopia
Native speakers
92,000 (2007 census)1
Dialects
  • Fuga
Ethiopic, Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3jnj
Glottologyems1235
ELPYem

Yemsa is the language of the Yem people of the former Kingdom of Yamma, known as the Kingdom of Janjero traditionally. It is a member of the Omotic group of languages, most closely related to Kafa. It is distinctive in having different systems of vocabulary depending on social status, rather like Japanese and Javanese. The estimated number of speakers varies wildly from about 1000 (Bender, 1976) to half a million (Aklilu, 1993). The ISO 639-3 system for assigning standardized codes to languages has faced criticism for perpetuating the use of the term Janjero despite its prejudicial origin; the Yem language is coded as jnj as opposed to a mnemonic derived from the preferred name of the language.2

Yemsa is the main language spoken in Yem special woreda, Central Ethiopia.

The Fuga dialect is distinct enough to perhaps be a different language.

Sample verb forms

  • zagín - I do
  • zaginí - we do
  • zagít - you (singular) do
  • zagí - he does
  • zagì - she does

3

Notes

Notes

  1. Ethiopia 2007 Census
  2. Morey, Stephen; Post, Mark W.; Friedman, Victor A. (2013). The language codes of ISO 639: A premature, ultimately unobtainable, and possibly damaging standardization. PARADISEC RRR Conference. Archived from the original on 23 February 2016. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  3. African Languages: An Introduction, edited by Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
External links