Editing Oromo language (section)

== Speakers ==
About 85 percent of Oromo speakers live in [[Ethiopia]], mainly in the [[Oromia Region]]. In addition, in [[Somalia]] there are also some speakers of the language.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Languages of Somalia |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=SO |access-date=10 February 2025 |website=Ethnologue |language=en}}</ref> In [[Kenya]], the Ethnologue also lists 627,000 speakers of [[Southern Oromo language|Borana]] and [[Orma language|Orma]], two languages closely related to Ethiopian Oromo.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Languages of Kenya |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=KE |access-date=10 February 2025 |website=Ethnologue |language=en}}</ref> Within Ethiopia, Oromo is the language with the largest number of native speakers.

Within Africa, Oromo is the language with the fourth most speakers, after Arabic (if one counts the mutually unintelligible spoken forms of Arabic as a single language and assumes the same for the varieties of Oromo), [[Swahili language|Swahili]], and [[Hausa language|Hausa]].

Besides first language speakers, a number of members of other ethnicities who are in contact with the Oromo speak it as a second language. See, for example, the [[Omotic languages|Omotic]]-speaking [[Bambassi language|Bambassi]] and the [[Nilo-Saharan languages|Nilo-Saharan]]-speaking [[Kwama people|Kwama]] in northwestern Oromia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Languages of Ethiopia |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=ET |access-date=2013-08-10 |website=Ethnologue |language=en}}</ref>