On behalf of Advocacy for Oromia (A4O) and the Oromo community in Victoria, we are very concerned about what has happened to the Oromo language through members of the Oromo community engaged in interpreter and translation services. The issue is that the Oromo language is divided into four parts, requiring interpreters to choose one of them and register for the service with NAATI. This decision was made without linguistic justification or community consultation, and it undermines the unity, accessibility, and historical resilience of the Oromo language.

There are too few Oromo interpreters and/or interpreters to meet the community’s needs, and the division of the Oromo language further disrupts service delivery. Despite being officially recognized as a single language in census and immigration records, Oromo has been arbitrarily split into four parts, creating unnecessary barriers. This decision ignores its cohesive structure and was made without consultation, violating principles of linguistic self-determination (per UNESCO’s guidelines).

The Oromo language, banned in Ethiopia until 1991, is now central to education, governance, and cultural preservation. It functions as a unifying force in synagogues, communities, and identity preservation worldwide. More than a tool for communication, Oromo represents cultural resilience, unity, and resistance against historical oppression. Fragmenting it undermines access to essential services and weakens a historically suppressed language that has fought for recognition.

We urge your office to intervene in this situation and exert the necessary pressure to reverse this decision. Restoring Oromo as a single, unified language is vital to ensuring accessibility, fairness, and respect for linguistic rights. Our demands are:

• Immediate reversal of the division, with Oromo restored as a single language option.
• Community involvement: A seat for Oromo linguists and representatives in any future language-related decisions.

We would be honoured to arrange a delegation meeting at your convenience. We eagerly anticipate your response.

Yours sincerely,

Advocacy for Oromia

NAATI Response

Good afternoon Oromo Practitioners and Representative Groups

I wish to thank all of you who took the time to provide input into NAATI’s review of how Oromo was classified in our system. Due to the unanimous feedback from Practitioners and Representative Community Groups we will not be progressing with any changes and we have confirmation from TIS National they will not make any changes either.

I am sorry for those who believed that NAATI had already made the decision, or were not consulting, my initial email was obviously not clear enough. NAATI would never assume to understand the community’s connection and understanding of their language, and my reaching out to all practitioners was our way of initially consulting with those who understand and know best, to better inform ourselves before any changes or further research was progressed.

The International Standards Organisation and Ethnologue both list the variants of Oromo that we provided in my initial email (copied below), we would recommend that any interested groups contribute to their understanding via Contributor Program | Ethnologue Essentials or ISO 639-5 Language Coding Agency – Library of Congress.

Thank you again for your valuable input, and confirming that there will be no changes by NAATI to the classification or naming.

Regards