The Mursi (or Murzu) are a nomadic cattle herder ethnic group located in the Debub Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region in Ethiopia, close to the Sudanese border. According to the 2007 national census, there are 7,500 Mursi, 448 of whom live in urban areas, of the total number 92.25% live in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region.

Surrounded by mountains between the Omo River and its tributary the Mago, the home of the Mursi is one of the most isolated regions of the country. Their neighbors include the Aari, the Banna, the Bodi, the Kara, the Kwegu, the Me’en the Nyangatom and the Suri. They are grouped together with the Me’en and Suri by the Ethiopian government under the name Surma.

The Mursi have their own language, also called Mursi, which is classified as one of the Surmic languages; it is closely related (over 80% cognate) to Me’en and Suri, as well as Kwegu. According to the 1994 national census, there were 3,163 people who were identified as Mursi in the SNNPR; 3,158 spoke Mursi as their first language, while 31 spoke it as their second language. According to the analytical volume of the 1994 national census, where Mursi was grouped under Me’en, 89.7% were monolingual, and the second languages spoken were Bench (4.2%), Amharic (3.5% the official language of Ethiopia, and Kafa (1.1%).

Two orthographies for the Mursi language exist, one using the Amharic abiguda and the other Latin-based script. The Amharic-based orthography was developed by members of the missionary organization Serving In Mission, who have worked amongst the Mursi at Maki since 1987. The Latin-based one was developed by Moges Yigezu, of Addis Ababa University.

Text via: Wikipedia

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