If you show the Ethiopian alphabet to an American you meet on the street the chance that it would be guessed right is one in a hundred.

Most of the people would not know that the Ethiopian child learns how to read and write the 400 or so phonetic Ge'ez characters along with the English alphabet in grade schools.
The ancient Ethiopians came up with a character for every possible sound. The Ethiopian alphabet is as simple as the Greek. They are different from the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets and those of the English and other related alphabets.
99 languages are spoken in the country. Amharic and English are the de facto languages of the state, with greater emphasis being placed on other languages in the official. The other major local languages are Guaragigna, Oromigna, Somali, and Tigrigna. Other languages of international significance that are widely spoken include Arabic, French, and Italian.