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The country has more than 80 different languages and great cultural diversity. It is not without reason that the great historian, Conti-Rossini, characterized Ethiopia as a rich cultural mosaic.
Three thousand years before the birth of Christ the ancient Egyptians sent expeditions down the Red sea in quest of gold, ivory, incense, and slaves, they called this territory ‘The Land of Punt’. Although this term was used for both sides of the Red Sea, most of the goods seem to have come from the Ethiopian area. Today Ethiopia is a rich cultural mosaic due to its eighty different languages and dialects and as many, if not more, cultural variations. Semitic languages are spoken in the North and much of the centre of the country, including Tigrinya, Guraginya and Ethiopia’s official language, Amharic. All are derived from the ancient Ge’ez which today only survives in church liturgy and literature.