This linguistic landscape study enables the analysis of agency as linked to literacy, language rights and identity. It discusses how speakers of the regional Tigrinya and Oromo languages in Ethiopia's Tigray and Oromia regions that obtained the recognition of language rights, use their multilingual resources (i.e. their regional languages in contact and the official Amharic working language) to engender a new arena for language use and thereby claim their power in elaborating novel literacy practices.