 With 21,811,600 total speakers as of 2007, including around 4,000,000 second language speakers, Amharic is the second-most common language of Ethiopia (after Oromo) and second-most commonly spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic).Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Ge'ez script.The writing system is called "fidäl" () in Ethiopian Semitic languages.