More than 40 million people speak the language – now you can study Oromo
The University of Gothenburg is expanding its range of courses in African languages. In spring 2027, an introductory course in Oromo will be offered. It is one of Africa’s largest languages, yet remains relatively unknown in Sweden.
Oromo is spoken by more than 40 million people, mainly in Ethiopia but also in northern Kenya. Despite the large number of speakers, opportunities to study the language at European universities are very limited. The University of Gothenburg is now launching a distance-learning course providing an introduction to the language.
“By number of native speakers, Oromo is perhaps the fourth largest language in Africa. Yet many people here in Europe have no idea what it is, or even which part of the world it comes from. I think a language of this size deserves to be available for study somewhere in Europe,” says Morgan Nilsson, Senior Lecturer in Somali and course coordinator.
The course is aimed at anyone interested in learning the theoretical foundations of Oromo. Students will gain basic knowledge of its grammar and structure, vocabulary and pronunciation rules, as well as practise reading simple texts with the help of a dictionary.
“This is not a practical course where you learn phrases for tourists. It is more about gaining an understanding of how the language is structured and how it works,” says Morgan Nilsson.
Long prohibited from official use
The course also covers the linguistic situation of Oromo and its historical background. For much of the 20th century, Oromo was prohibited as a language of education and public administration in Ethiopia, while Amharic was the dominant official language. It was only following the political changes of the 1990s that Oromo began to be used in schools, the media and public administration in the Oromia Region. Since 2021, it has also been possible to use Oromo as a working language in the Ethiopian parliament.
“This means that for a long time there was no standardised form of Oromo, even though it continued to be used as a spoken language. But developments have been extremely rapid, partly because so many people speak it as their first language.”
Related to Somali
Oromo belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family and is therefore more closely related to Somali than, for example, Amharic. It was through Somali, which Morgan Nilsson has taught and researched for many years, that he first became interested in Oromo.
“When you have worked with Somali for many years, you naturally become curious about neighbouring languages. Oromo is the largest Cushitic language, so it was a natural next step,” he says.
Is Oromo a difficult language to learn?
“I don’t really believe in categorising languages as easy or difficult. There are, however, things that can slow you down or present obstacles in the early stages of learning. Chinese characters can certainly be a hurdle for many people, for example, as can the Russian or Arabic alphabets. Oromo is written using the Latin alphabet, and grammatically I wouldn’t say it is particularly difficult. The main challenge is that the vocabulary is completely new to most people. But ultimately, I think it more or less evens out, regardless of which language you are learning,” says Morgan Nilsson.
Janna Roosch
Applications for the course Oromo, Introduction Course, 7.5 credits are open until 15 October 2026. The course is taught in English. The Department of Languages and Literatures already offers similar introductory courses in Swahili, Somali, Xhosa and Zulu.
One of the first translations of the Bible into Oromo was produced with the support of Swedish missionaries, and the translator studied in Sweden for several years. An Oromo–Swedish dictionary was also compiled as early as the 19th century.