The Oromo people group also goes by the names Oromoo or Oromoota (plural). They are an ancient, traditionally pastoral people who live in western and southern Ethiopia and part of Kenya and Somalia. Originally from northern Somalia, they later migrated to the region of Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf). In the mid-16th century, they began to move into the Ethiopian highlands. The land of the Oromo is called Biyya-Oromo (Oromo country) or Oromia (Oromiya).

Language: The Oromo nation has a single common mother tongue and basic common culture. The Oromo language, afaan Oromoo or Oromiffa, belongs to the eastern Kushitic group of languages and is the most extensive of the forty or so Kushitic languages. The Oromo language is closely related to Konso (with more than fifty percent of the words in common), closely related to Somali, and distantly related to Afar and Saho.

Oromiffa is the mother tongue of more than 45 million Oromo people living in Ethiopia and neighboring countries. In fact, Oromiffa is a lingua franca in the whole of Ethiopia except for the northern part. It is a language spoken in common by several members of many nationalities like Harari, Anuak, Barta, Sidama, and Gurage, who are neighbors to Oromo.