This re search foc u scd o n the ling uistic features and social a spects of th e ?afo a rgot. Thernobjectives of thi s rescarc h a re to describe the lin guistic features of the ?afo argot and the socia lrnaspect s of the rafo argot and it s speakers in o rd er to explain why the ?afo people use it as secretrnlanguagc. To achie ve these objectives, th e researcher us ed purposive me th od sa mpling to se lectrnthc informants. Elicitation, interv iew and participatory observa ti on m et hod wc re uscd to co ll cc trnthe data. The data have b een recorded by using audio-tape record er and vid co-camera.rnQualitative a s well as quantitative methods are employed to analyze the collected data.rnT hc Endings o f thi s re sea rc h are the following. There is underestimation bctween th e ?afo andrnnon-?af o group s. This undc restima ti o n is a reason for the rafo group to be s cll~de s ignated and tornha ve secret la ngua ge 0 1' a rgo t. Second , thc ?afo argot is dcri vcd from T igrin ya and A mhari crnwords through form, scmantic, form and s emantic changes, usin g diffcrent se man ti c aspects andrndircc t u sed te rms of Ti g rinya. In form cha n ge, th e ?afo a r got uses phonologi ca l defo rm ati o nsrnsuch as a ddition, m e tathesis, redup lica tion , substitution, deletion, vowcl defo rm ation andrndegemination as w ell as free variation and depalatalization of the sound s. In ad d iti on , sufli xcsrnand some prelixes o f Tig rin ya and Amharic, onomatopoeic words and changed term s fr omrnco mpound vc rb s to s in g le wo rd s havc been used in th e formation of the argot. The ?afo a rgo trna lso uses se illanti c Inad, in s trulllcntal nouns, paraphras ti c desc ription s, con notati ve andrndenotative mcanll1 gs a nd namin g whole and parts in the sam e word to s olve inadequate ofrnexpressions. 7afo argn t lI ses th e phonological and sy ntac tic stru c ture a s we ll as Illorphologicalrncxpressions ofT igr in ya.