Amharic numbers, prices and how to haggle politely

Most people learn one to ten in Amharic, feel pleased, and then get stuck at the first stall in Merkato. The words are not the hard part. The hard part is that Ethiopia runs several numbering systems at once, and a market uses all of them in the same hour.

There is a set of Ethiopic numerals you will see printed on signs and in church books, and a set of Arabic numerals used for almost every price. There is a calendar seven or eight years behind the one on your phone, and it will be on your receipt. There is a clock that starts at dawn, so a shop that opens at two is open at eight in the morning. None of this is obscure or ceremonial. It is what the person in front of you is actually using.

One warning about the respellings below. Amharic has ejective consonants, the ones written ቀ, ጠ, ጨ and ጸ, which are produced with a catch in the throat and have no English equivalent. It also doubles consonants in ways that change meaning. A respelling cannot carry either. Treat what follows as a way in, not a transcription.

The counting numbers are and, hulet, sost, arat, amist, sidist, sebat, simint, zet'egn, asir. The tens are haya (20), selasa (30), arba (40), hamsa (50), silsa (60), seba (70), semanya (80), zet'ena (90). Above that you need only two more words, meto for hundred and shi for thousand.

Compounds stack with no joining word. One hundred and fifty is meto hamsa. One thousand five hundred is shi amist meto. The teens are the one small irregularity: eleven is asra and, twelve asra hulet, and the rest follow, with asir shortening to asra before the unit.

The currency is the birr, divided into a hundred santim. You will hear the word birr constantly and handle santim coins rarely, because everyday prices sit at the birr level and small change tends to be scarce. Expect rounding, and expect to be the one who breaks a large note.

In speech the currency is usually dropped. Ask the price of a bundle of herbs and the answer is likely to be a bare hamsa, not hamsa birr. The number alone is the price, and the unit is assumed. This is why learning the tens matters more than learning the polite phrases: the whole transaction can turn on one unglossed word thrown over a shoulder.

Ethiopic script has its own numerals, and they are not positional. Each one is a value in itself: ፩ is one, ፲ is ten, ፻ is a hundred, ፼ is ten thousand. You build a number by adding, so 124 is written ፻፳፬, hundred plus twenty plus four. There is no zero, because the system never needed a placeholder.

You will meet these numerals on church manuscripts, on some older signage, in chapter and verse numbering, and in formal or decorative writing. You will almost never meet them on a price. Shops, menus, receipts, bus fares and mobile money all use 0 to 9. So the practical rule is: read Ethiopic numerals, write Arabic ones, and do not be thrown when a hotel numbers its floors one way and its bill the other.

Ethiopia keeps its own calendar, and it is in ordinary official use. It has thirteen months, twelve of thirty days plus Pagume, a short month of five days, or six in a leap year. The new year begins on the first of Meskerem, which falls around the eleventh of September, and the year count runs seven to eight years behind the Gregorian one depending on where you are in the cycle.

This matters at a counter. A handwritten receipt, a lease, a warranty or a vaccination card may be dated in the Ethiopian calendar, often marked ዓ.ም, and it will look several years out of date to you. It is not a mistake. If a date matters, ask which calendar it is in before you plan around it.

The Ethiopian clock counts from dawn rather than midnight, so the hours are offset by six from the international clock. Seven in the morning is one o'clock, midday is six o'clock, and six in the evening is twelve. Digital displays, airlines and formal schedules generally use the international clock. A person telling you when their shop opens very often does not.

Bargaining in an open market is normal and expected for produce, textiles, crafts and anything in a stall. It is a short exchange, not a duel, and it works best when you state facts about the price rather than accusations about the seller.

The form worth memorising is ይቀንሱ. Amharic marks respect by using a plural verb for a single person, and this is that form. The blunt singular equivalent, ቀንስ, is grammatically correct and socially wrong with a stranger, an older person or anyone you are asking a favour of. It is the difference between please lower it and lower it.

Do not bargain where prices are fixed. Supermarkets, pharmacies, cafes, bakeries and most restaurants post a price and mean it, and asking for ቅናሽ there reads as a small social misfire rather than a negotiation. Minibus fares on a set route are also not yours to negotiate; ask what the fare is and hand it over.

Do not turn a high opening price into an accusation. Foreigners are often quoted an optimistic first number, and the effective answer is ውድ ነው followed by your own figure, or a polite thank you and a slow walk. Saying out loud that someone is cheating you ends the exchange and costs you the stall.

Do not address a stranger with the familiar አንተ or አንቺ. The respectful pronoun is እርስዎ, and the safe titles are አቶ for a man and ወይዘሮ for a married woman. Amharic speakers also use kinship terms warmly with people they do not know, which is worth listening for before you copy it. The plural verb endings do the polite work on their own, so you can be correct without any title at all.

Amharic is the working language of towns and government across the country, but it is not everyone's first language. In parts of Oromia you may hear prices in Afaan Oromo, and in Tigray in Tigrinya, which is a related language with its own number words and the same Ethiopic numerals. Vendors used to travellers will switch to Amharic or to numerals written on a scrap of paper, and the written figure settles more arguments than any phrase here.

Even inside Amharic there is variation in the numbers themselves. Sixty appears both as silsa and as sidsa, and you will hear both without anyone treating either as an error. For large sums, people commonly quote in thousands and let you fill in the rest, so shi amist for a big purchase is a figure you should confirm rather than assume.

Phone numbers are read out digit by digit, and the digit that gives beginners trouble is zero. The Ethiopic system has no zero, so the spoken word is the borrowed ዜሮ. Ethiopian mobile numbers begin 09, which you will hear as zero, zet'egn before anything else.

In writing, the register flattens out. Mobile money confirmations, invoices and price lists use 0 to 9 and either ብር or the abbreviation br, and prices in chat messages are usually bare numerals with no currency and no politeness at all. Amharic is also widely typed in Latin letters in messaging, so a quoted price may arrive as sint new or as a single number. Nobody haggles by text for a bundle of coriander, but people do confirm a figure by message before travelling across a city for it, and a written number is the one form of Amharic no accent can garble.

Learn ስንት ነው, ውድ ነው and ትንሽ ይቀንሱ and you can buy anything in a market without either overpaying or giving offence. Add the tens up to meto, because prices are quoted as bare numbers.

Then check two things before you trust any figure you are given: which calendar the date is in, and which clock the time is on. The numbers are easy. The systems around them are what catch people out.