The Gurage are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting Ethiopia. They inhabit the Gurage Zone and East Gurage Zone, a fertile, semi-mountainous region in Central Ethiopia Regional State, about 125 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, bordering the Awash River in the north, the Gibe River, a tributary of the Omo River, to the southwest, and Hora-Dambal in the east.
A Gurage boy ploughing in Gurage Zone
Gurage artist Mahmoud Ahmed
A Gurage teenager picking potatoes on one of the Ethiopian highlands
Ethio-Semitic is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan. They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages, itself a sub-branch of Semitic, part of the Afroasiatic language family.
Genealogy of the Semitic languages