The term encompasses a cluster of languages belonging to the south Ethiopic group of Semitic. There are at least three distinct Gurage languages, possibly as many as twelve (Leslau 1980). Bender (personal communication, 1983) notes that some are "as different from one another as Tigrinya and Amharic."
Grimes (1996) cites a figure of 1,856,000 speakers of all Gurage languages. UBS (1982) notes 542,000 Chaha speakers and 135,000 for Sil'ti (see below).
Gogo is a local language.
No standardized orthography exists for any of the Gurage languages.
It is unclear at this time how many sets of learning materials would be required.
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