"It has been the working language of government, language of trade and everyday communications, the military, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church since at least the late 13th century and remains the Official language of Ethiopiatoday.[10][11] The 2007 census counted nearly 22 million native and 15 million secondary speakers in Ethiopia. Amharic is spoken by some 3 million emigrants outside Ethiopia. Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic. In Washington DC, Amharic became one of the six non-English languages in the Language Access Act of 2004, which allows government services and education in Amharic.[12] Furthermore, Amharic is considered as a holy language by the Rastafari religion and it is widely used among its followers worldwide. It is the most widely spoken language in the Horn of Africa.[13] It is written (left-to-right) using Amharic Fidel, ፊደል, which grew out of the Ge'ez abugida—called, in Ethiopian Semitic languages, ፊደል fidel ("writing system", "letter", or "character") and አቡጊዳ abugida(from the first four Ethiopic letters, which gave rise to the modern linguistic term abugida)."