"Only Amharic or Leave Quick!": Linguistic Genocide in the Western Tigray Region of Ethiopia

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This recently published scientific article sheds more light on the ethnic cleansing of Western Tigray:

Merih Welay Welesilassie, Berhane Gerencheal, 2024. "Only Amharic or Leave Quick!": Linguistic Genocide in the Western Tigray Region of Ethiopia. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law.

It appears that while the dirty work of massacres in Western Tigray was largely (but not exclusively) outsourced to the Fano irregulars, the forced amharanization of Western Tigrayans was implemented through the formal structures of the Amhara Regional administration.

From the abstract: “This research investigated the motives and means by which the Amhara Regional State-enforced a monolingual and monocultural language education policy in western Tigray through the lens of linguistic genocide. The study involved interviews with ten teachers, selected using a snowball sampling method, and document analysis to reinforce the result. Political and economic factors and a desire to promote the assimilation of Tigrayans into Amhara culture and language, a process known as "Amharanization", appear to have impacted the implementation of the language education policy in western Tigray. Authorities have implemented a variety of measures, including bans, restrictions, penalties, enforcement, forced relocation, and even heinous acts, which have caused the Tigrayan community severe physical and psychological distress. Collectively, these policies, actions, and outcomes constituted an act of linguistic genocide.”

You may access the article from here: https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... f_Ethiopia