Tigrinya language
Category:Use dmy dates from January 2024
| Tigrinya | |
|---|---|
| ትግርኛCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text (Təgrəñña) | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [tɨɡrɨɲːä] ⓘCategory:Pages with Tigrinya IPACategory:Pages including recorded pronunciations |
| Native to | Eritrea, Ethiopia |
| Ethnicity | Tigrayans Tigrinya |
Native speakers | 9.9 million (2022–2023)[1] |
| Geʽez script (Tigrinya abugida) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Eritrea Ethiopia |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ti |
| ISO 639-2 | tir |
| ISO 639-3 | tir |
| Glottolog | tigr1271 |
 | |
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Tigrinya,[a] sometimes romanized as Tigrigna, is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is primarily spoken by the Tigrinya and Tigrayan peoples native to Eritrea and the Ethiopian state of the Tigray Region, respectively.[5] It is also spoken by the global diaspora of these regions.
History and literature
Although it differs markedly from the Geʽez (Classical Ethiopic) language, for instance in having phrasal verbs, and in using a word order that places the main verb last instead of first in the sentence, there is a strong influence of Geʽez on Tigrinya literature, especially with terms relating to Christian life, Biblical names, and so on.[6] Ge'ez, because of its status in Eritrean and Ethiopian culture, and possibly also its simple structure, acted as a literary medium until relatively recent times.[7]Category:Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2024[page needed] Tigrinya is lexically 68% similar to Geʽez, slightly higher than the lexical similarity of Amharic to the ancient language at 62%.[8]
The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the district of Logosarda, Debub Region in Southern Eritrea, which dates from the 13th century.Category:All articles with unsourced statementsCategory:Articles with unsourced statements from April 2023[citation needed]
In Eritrea, during British administration, the Ministry of Information put out a weekly newspaper in Tigrinya that cost 5 cents and sold 5,000 copies weekly. At the time, it was reported to be the first of its kind.[9]
Tigrinya (along with Arabic) was one of Eritrea's official languages during its short-lived federation with Ethiopia. In 1958, it was replaced by the Southern Ethiopic language Amharic prior to Eritrea's annexation. Upon Eritrea's independence in 1991, Tigrinya retained the status of working language in the country. Eritrea was the only state in the world to officially recognize Tigrinya until 2020, when Ethiopia made changes to recognize Tigrinya on a national level.
Speakers
There is no general name for the people who speak Tigrinya. In Eritrea, Tigrinya speakers are officially known as the Bəher-Təgrəñña ('nation of Tigrinya speakers') or Tigrinya people. In Ethiopia, a Tigrayan, that is a native of Tigray, who also speaks the Tigrinya language, is referred to in Tigrinya as təgraway (male), təgrawäyti (female), tägaru (plural). Bəher roughly means "nation" in the ethnic sense of the word in Tigrinya, Tigre, Amharic and Ge'ez. The Jeberti in Eritrea also speak Tigrinya.
Tigrinya is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea (see Demographics of Eritrea), and the fourth most spoken language in Ethiopia after Amharic, Oromo, and Somali. It is also spoken by large immigrant communities around the world, in countries including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Denmark, Germany, Uganda, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. In Australia, Tigrinya is one of the languages broadcast on public radio via the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service.[10]
Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically.[11] No dialect appears to be accepted as a standard. Even though the most spread and used in, for example books, movies and news is the Asmara dialect.
Phonology
For the representation of Tigrinya sounds, this article uses a modification of a system that is common (though not universal) among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages, but differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Consonant phonemes
Tigrinya has a fairly typical set of phonemes for an Ethiopian Semitic language. That is, there is a set of ejective consonants and the usual seven-vowel system. Unlike many of the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has preserved the two pharyngeal consonants which were apparently part of the ancient Geʽez language and which, along with [xʼ], voiceless velar ejective fricative or voiceless uvular ejective fricative, make it easy to distinguish spoken Tigrinya from related languages such as Amharic, though not from Tigre, which has also maintained the pharyngeal consonants.
The charts below show the phonemes of Tigrinya. The sounds are shown using the same system for representing the sounds as in the rest of the article. When the IPA symbol is different, the orthography is indicated in brackets.
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Postalveolar/ Palatal |
Velar | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Lab. | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ ⟨ñ⟩ | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | tʃ ⟨č⟩ | k | kʷ | ʔ ⟨’⟩ | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ ⟨ǧ⟩ | ɡ | ɡʷ | |||
| ejective | pʼ ⟨p̣⟩ | tʼ ⟨ṭ⟩ | tʃʼ ⟨č̣⟩ | kʼ ⟨q⟩ | kʷʼ ⟨qʷ⟩ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ ⟨š⟩ | x[b] ⟨ḵ⟩ | xʷ[b] ⟨ḵʷ⟩ | ħ ⟨ḥ⟩ | h |
| voiced | v[c] | z | ʒ ⟨ž⟩ | ʕ ⟨ʽ⟩ | ||||
| ejective | tsʼ ⟨ṣ⟩ | xʼ[b] ⟨q̱⟩ | xʷʼ[b] ⟨q̱ʷ⟩ | |||||
| Approximant | l | j ⟨y⟩ | w | |||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||||
- ↑ ትግርኛ, TəgrəññaCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text
- 1 2 3 4 The fricative sounds [x]Category:Pages with plain IPA, [xʷ], [xʼ]Category:Pages with plain IPA and [xʷʼ] occur as allophones of the corresponding velar plosives.
- ↑ The consonant /v/ occurs only in recent borrowings from European languages.
Vowel phonemes
The sounds are shown using the same system for representing the sounds as in the rest of the article. When the IPA symbol is different, the orthography is indicated in brackets.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ ⟨ə⟩ | u |
| Mid | e | ɐ ⟨ä⟩ | o |
| Open | a |
Gemination
Gemination, the doubling of a consonantal sound, is meaningful in Tigrinya, i.e. it affects the meaning of words. While gemination plays an important role in the morphology of the Tigrinya verb, it is normally accompanied by other marks. But there is a small number of pairs of words which are only differentiable from each other by gemination, e.g. /kʼɐrrɐbɐ/Category:Pages with plain IPA, ('he brought forth'); /kʼɐrɐbɐ/Category:Pages with plain IPA, ('he came closer'). All consonants, with the exception of the pharyngeal and glottal ones, can be geminated.[13]
Allophones
The velar consonants /k/Category:Pages with plain IPA and /kʼ/Category:Pages with plain IPA are pronounced differently when they appear immediately after a vowel and are not geminated. In these circumstances, /k/Category:Pages with plain IPA is pronounced as a velar fricative. /kʼ/Category:Pages with plain IPA is pronounced as a fricative, or sometimes as an affricate. This fricative or affricate is more often pronounced further back, in the uvular place of articulation (although it is represented in this article as [xʼ]Category:Pages with plain IPA). All of these possible realizations – velar ejective fricative, uvular ejective fricative, velar ejective affricate and uvular ejective affricate – are cross-linguistically very rare sounds.
Since these two sounds are completely conditioned by their environments, they can be considered allophones of /k/Category:Pages with plain IPA and /kʼ/Category:Pages with plain IPA. This is especially clear from verb roots in which one consonant is realized as one or the other allophone depending on what precedes it. For example, for the verb meaning 'cry', which has the triconsonantal root √b-k-y, there are forms such as ምብካይCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text /məbkaj/Category:Pages with plain IPA ('to cry') and በኸየCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text /bɐxɐjɐ/Category:Pages with plain IPA ('he cried'), and for the verb meaning 'steal', which has the triconsonantal root √s-r-kʼ, there are forms such as ይሰርቁCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text /jəsɐrkʼu/Category:Pages with plain IPA ('they steal') and ይሰርቕCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text /jəsɐrrəxʼ/Category:Pages with plain IPA ('he steals').
What is especially interesting about these pairs of phones is that they are distinguished in Tigrinya orthography. Because allophones are completely predictable, it is quite unusual for them to be represented with distinct symbols in the written form of a language.
Syllables
A Tigrinya syllable may consist of a consonant-vowel or a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence. When three consonants (or one geminated consonant and one simple consonant) come together within a word, the cluster is broken up with the introduction of an epenthetic vowel -ə-, and when two consonants (or one geminated consonant) would otherwise end a word, the vowel -i appears after them, or (when this happens because of the presence of a suffix) -ə- is introduced before the suffix. For example,
| Root | ከብድCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text √k-b-d | ልብCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text √l-b-b |
|---|---|---|
| -ኢCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text -i '∅' | ከብዲCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text käbdi 'stomach' | ልቢCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text ləbbi 'heart' |
| -አይCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text -äy 'my' | ከብደይCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text käbdäy 'my stomach' | ልበይCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text ləbbäy 'my heart' |
| -ካCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text -ka 'your (masc.)' | ከብድኻCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text käbdəxa 'your (masc.) stomach' | ልብኻCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text ləbbəxa 'your (masc.) heart' |
| -ን…-ንCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text -n… -n 'and' | ከብድን ልብንCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text käbdən ləbbən 'stomach and heart' | |
Stress is neither contrastive nor particularly salient in Tigrinya. It seems to depend on gemination, but it has apparently not been systematically investigated.
Grammar
Typical grammatical features
Grammatically, Tigrinya is a typical Ethiopian Semitic (ES) language in most ways:
- A Tigrinya noun is treated as either masculine or feminine. However, most inanimate nouns do not have a fixed gender.
- Tigrinya nouns have plural, as well as singular, forms, though the plural is not obligatory when the linguistic or pragmatic context makes the number clear. As in Tigre and Geʼez (as well as Arabic), noun plurals may be formed through internal changes ("broken" plural) as well as through the addition of suffixes. For example, ፈረስCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text färäs 'horse', ኣፍራሰCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text ʼafras 'horses'.
- Adjectives behave in most ways like nouns. Most Tigrinya adjectives, like those in Tigre and Ge'ez, have feminine and plural (both genders) forms. For example, ጽቡቕCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text ṣǝbbuq̱ 'good (m.sg.)', ጽብቕቲCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text ṣǝbbǝq̱ti 'good (f.sg.)', ጽቡቓትCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text ṣǝbbuq̱at 'good (m./f. pl.)'
- Within personal pronouns and subject agreement inflections on verbs, gender is distinguished in second person as well as third. For example, ተዛረብCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text täzaräb 'speak! (m.sg.)', ተዛረቢCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text täzaräbi 'speak (f.sg.)'.
- Possessive adjectives take the form of noun suffixes: ገዛCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text gäza 'house', ገዛይCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text gäza-y 'my house', ገዛኺCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text gäza-ḵi 'your (f.sg.) house'.
- Verbs are based on consonantal roots, most consisting of three consonants: √sbr 'break', ሰበረCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text säbärä 'he broke', ይሰብርCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text yǝsäbbǝr 'he breaks', ምስባርCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text mǝsbar 'to break'.
- Within the tense system there is a basic distinction between the perfective form—conjugated with suffixes and denoting the past—and the imperfective form—conjugated with prefixes and in some cases suffixes—and denoting the present or future: ሰበሩCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text säbär-u 'they broke', ይሰብሩCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text yǝ-säbr-u 'they break'.
- As in Ge'ez and Amharic, there is also a separate "gerundive" form of the verb, conjugated with suffixes and used to link verbs within a sentence: ገዲፍካ ተዛረብCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text gädifka täzaräb 'stop (that) and speak (m.sg.)'.
- Verbs also have a separate jussive/imperative form, similar to the imperfective: ይስበሩCategory:Articles containing Tigrinya-language text yǝ-sbär-u 'let them break'.
- Through the addition of derivational morphology (internal changes to verb stems and/or prefixes), verbs may be made passive, reflexive, causative, frequentative, reciprocal, or reciprocal causative: ፈለጡCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text fäläṭ-u 'they knew', ተፈልጡCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text tä-fälṭ-u 'they were known', ኣፈልጡCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼa-fälṭ-u 'they caused to know (they introduced)', ተፋለጡCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text tä-faläṭ-u 'they knew each other', ኣፋለጡCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼa-f-faläṭ-u 'they caused to know each other'.
- Verbs may take direct object and prepositional pronoun suffixes: ፈለጠኒCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text fäläṭä-nni 'he knew me', ፈለጠለይCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text fäläṭä-lläy 'he knew for me'.
- Negation is expressed through the prefix ay- and, in independent clauses, the suffix -n: ኣይፈለጠንCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼay-fäläṭä-n 'he didn't know'.
- The copula and the verb of existence in the present are irregular: ኣሎCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼallo 'there is, he exists', እዩCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼǝyyu 'he is', የለንCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text or የልቦንCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text yällän or yälbon 'there isn't, he doesn't exist', ኣይኰነንCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼaykʷänän 'he isn't, it isn't', ነበረCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text näbärä 'he existed, he was, there was', ይኸውንCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text yǝ-ḵäwwǝn 'he will be', ይነብርCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text yǝ-näbbǝr 'he will exist, there will be'.
- The verb of existence together with object suffixes for the possessor expresses possession ('have') and obligation ('must'): ኣሎኒCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼallo-nni 'I have, I must' (lit. 'there is to') me').
- Relative clauses are expressed by a prefix attached to the verb: ዝፈለጠCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text zǝ-fäläṭä 'who knew'
- Cleft sentences, with relative clauses normally following the copula, are very common: መን እዩ ዝፈለጠCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text män ʼǝyyu zǝ-fäläṭä 'who knew?' (lit. 'who is he who knew?').
- There is an accusative marker used on definite direct objects. In Tigrinya this is the prefix nǝ-. For example, ሓጐስ ንኣልማዝ ረኺቡዋCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ḥagʷäs nǝ’almaz räḵibuwwa 'Hagos met Almaz'.
- As in other modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, the default word order in clauses is subject–object–verb, and noun modifiers usually (though not always in Tigrinya) precede their head nouns.
Innovations
Tigrinya grammar is unique within the Ethiopian Semitic language family in several ways:
- For second-person pronouns, there is a separate vocative form, used to get a person's attention: ንስኻCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text nǝssǝḵa 'you (m.sg.)', ኣታCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼatta 'you! (m.sg.)'.
- There is a definite article, related (as in English) to the demonstrative adjective meaning 'that': እታ ጓልCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼǝta gʷal 'the girl'.
- The gerundive form is used for past tense, as well as for the linking function as in Ge'ez and Amharic: ተዛሪቡCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text täzaribu '(he) speaking, he spoke'.
- Yes–no questions are marked by the particle ዶCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text do following the questioned word or the verb, if there is none: ሓፍተይዶ ርኢኺCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ḥaftäydo rǝʼiḵi 'did you (f.sg.) see my sister?'.
- The negative circumfix ʼay- -n may mark nouns, pronouns, and adjectives as well as verbs: ኣይኣነንCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼay-ʼanä-n 'not me', ኣይዓብይንCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼayʽabǝy-ǝn 'not big'
- Tigrinya has an unusually complex tense–aspect–mood system, with many nuances achieved using combinations of the three basic aspectual forms (perfect, imperfect, gerundive) and various auxiliary verbs including the copula (እዩCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼǝyyu, etc.), the verb of existence (ኣሎCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼallo, etc.), and the verbs ነበረCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text näbärä 'exist, live', ኮነCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text konä 'become', ጸንሔCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text s'änḥe 'stay'.
- Tigrinya has compound prepositions corresponding to the preposition–postposition compounds found in Amharic: ኣብ ልዕሊ ዓራትCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼab lǝʽli ʽarat 'on (top of) the bed', ኣብ ትሕቲ ዓራትCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text ʼab tǝḥti ʽarat 'under the bed'
- Unlike most Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has only one set of applicative suffixes, used both for the dative and benefactive and for locative and adversative senses: ተቐሚጣሉCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text täq̱ämmiṭa-llu 'she sat down for him' or 'she sat down on it' or 'she sat down to his detriment'.
Writing system
Tigrinya is written in the Geʽez script, originally developed for Geʽez. The Ethiopic script is an abugida: each symbol represents a consonant+vowel syllable, and the symbols are organized in groups of similar symbols on the basis of both the consonant and the vowel.[13] In the table below the columns are assigned to the seven vowels of Tigrinya; they appear in the traditional order. The rows are assigned to the consonants, again in the traditional order.
For each consonant in an abugida, there is an unmarked symbol representing that consonant followed by a canonical or inherent vowel. For the Ethiopic abugida, this canonical vowel is ä, the first column in the table. However, since the pharyngeal and glottal consonants of Tigrinya (and other Ethiopian Semitic languages) cannot be followed by this vowel, the symbols in the first column for those consonants are pronounced with the vowel a, exactly as in the fourth column. These redundant symbols are falling into disuse in Tigrinya and are shown with a dark gray background in the table. When it is necessary to represent a consonant with no following vowel, the consonant+ə form is used (the symbol in the sixth column). For example, the word ʼǝntay 'what?' is written እንታይCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text, literally ʼǝ-nǝ-ta-yǝ.
Since some of the distinctions that were apparently made in Ge'ez have been lost in Tigrinya, there are two rows of symbols each for the consonants ‹ḥ›, ‹s›, and ‹sʼ›. In Eritrea, for ‹s› and ‹sʼ›, at least, one of these has fallen into disuse in Tigrinya and is now considered old-fashioned. These less-used series are shown with a dark gray background in the chart.
The orthography does not mark gemination, so the pair of words qärräbä 'he approached', qäräbä 'he was near' are both written ቀረበCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text. Since such minimal pairs are very rare, this presents no problem to readers of the language.
| ä | u | i | a | e | (ə) | o | wä | wi | wa | we | wə | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| h | ሀ | ሁ | ሂ | ሃ | ሄ | ህ | ሆ | |||||||||||
| l | ለ | ሉ | ሊ | ላ | ሌ | ል | ሎ | |||||||||||
| ḥ | ሐ | ሑ | ሒ | ሓ | ሔ | ሕ | ሖ | |||||||||||
| m | መ | ሙ | ሚ | ማ | ሜ | ም | ሞ | |||||||||||
| s | ሠ | ሡ | ሢ | ሣ | ሤ | ሥ | ሦ | |||||||||||
| r | ረ | ሩ | ሪ | ራ | ሬ | ር | ሮ | |||||||||||
| s | ሰ | ሱ | ሲ | ሳ | ሴ | ስ | ሶ | |||||||||||
| š | ሸ | ሹ | ሺ | ሻ | ሼ | ሽ | ሾ | |||||||||||
| q | ቀ | ቁ | ቂ | ቃ | ቄ | ቅ | ቆ | ቈ | ቊ | ቋ | ቌ | ቍ | ||||||
| q̱Category:Pages with plain IPA | ቐ | ቑ | ቒ | ቓ | ቔ | ቕ | ቖ | ቘ | ቚ | ቛ | ቜ | ቝ | ||||||
| b | በ | ቡ | ቢ | ባ | ቤ | ብ | ቦ | |||||||||||
| v | ቨ | ቩ | ቪ | ቫ | ቬ | ቭ | ቮ | |||||||||||
| t | ተ | ቱ | ቲ | ታ | ቴ | ት | ቶ | |||||||||||
| č | ቸ | ቹ | ቺ | ቻ | ቼ | ች | ቾ | |||||||||||
| h | ኀ | ኁ | ኂ | ኃ | ኄ | ኅ | ኆ | ኈ | ኊ | ኋ | ኌ | ኍ | ||||||
| n | ነ | ኑ | ኒ | ና | ኔ | ን | ኖ | |||||||||||
| ñ | ኘ | ኙ | ኚ | ኛ | ኜ | ኝ | ኞ | |||||||||||
| ʼ | አ | ኡ | ኢ | ኣ | ኤ | እ | ኦ | |||||||||||
| k | ከ | ኩ | ኪ | ካ | ኬ | ክ | ኮ | ኰ | ኲ | ኳ | ኴ | ኵ | ||||||
| ḵ | ኸ | ኹ | ኺ | ኻ | ኼ | ኽ | ኾ | ዀ | ዂ | ዃ | ዄ | ዅ | ||||||
| w | ወ | ዉ | ዊ | ዋ | ዌ | ው | ዎ | |||||||||||
| ʽ | ዐ | ዑ | ዒ | ዓ | ዔ | ዕ | ዖ | |||||||||||
| z | ዘ | ዙ | ዚ | ዛ | ዜ | ዝ | ዞ | |||||||||||
| ž | ዠ | ዡ | ዢ | ዣ | ዤ | ዥ | ዦ | |||||||||||
| y | የ | ዩ | ዪ | ያ | ዬ | ይ | ዮ | |||||||||||
| d | ደ | ዱ | ዲ | ዳ | ዴ | ድ | ዶ | |||||||||||
| ǧ | ጀ | ጁ | ጂ | ጃ | ጄ | ጅ | ጆ | |||||||||||
| g | ገ | ጉ | ጊ | ጋ | ጌ | ግ | ጎ | ጐ | ጒ | ጓ | ጔ | ጕ | ||||||
| ṭ | ጠ | ጡ | ጢ | ጣ | ጤ | ጥ | ጦ | |||||||||||
| č̣ | ጨ | ጩ | ጪ | ጫ | ጬ | ጭ | ጮ | |||||||||||
| p̣ | ጰ | ጱ | ጲ | ጳ | ጴ | ጵ | ጶ | |||||||||||
| ṣ | ጸ | ጹ | ጺ | ጻ | ጼ | ጽ | ጾ | |||||||||||
| ṣ | ፀ | ፁ | ፂ | ፃ | ፄ | ፅ | ፆ | |||||||||||
| f | ፈ | ፉ | ፊ | ፋ | ፌ | ፍ | ፎ | |||||||||||
| p | ፐ | ፑ | ፒ | ፓ | ፔ | ፕ | ፖ | |||||||||||
| ä | u | i | a | e | (ə) | o | wä | wi | wa | we | wə | |||||||
See also
References
- ↑ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. (2025). "Tigrinya". Ethnologue, 28th ed. SIL International. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
- ↑ Tigrinya language at Ethnologue (28th ed., 2025)
Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 28 - ↑ "Classification of Ethio Semitic languages according to Hudson 2013". Research Gate. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
- ↑ "Issues in mapping and classifying the Semitic languages of Ethiopia". Tekabe Legesse Felake. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
- 1 2 "Tigrinya language". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 6 March 2024.
- ↑ The Bible in Tigrinya. United Bible Society. 1997.
- ↑ Ullendorff, Edward (1960). The Ethiopians. Oxford University Press.
- ↑ Bender, M. L. (May 1971). "The Languages of Ethiopia: A New Lexicostatistic Classification and Some Problems of Diffusion". Anthropological Linguistics. 13 (5): 173. JSTOR 30029540.
- ↑ Ministry of Information (1944). The First to be Freed—The record of British military administration in Eritrea and Somalia, 1941–1943 (Report). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.
- ↑ "ʾEs Bi ʾEs Təgrəñña" ኤስ ቢ ኤስ ትግርኛ. SBS Your Language.Category:CS1 uses Tigrinya-language script (ti)
- ↑ Leslau, Wolf (1941). Documents Tigrigna (Éthiopien Septentrional): Grammaire et Textes. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck.
- ↑ Buckley, E. (1994). "Tigrinya vowel features and vowel coalescence". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 1 (1): 2.
- 1 2 Rehman, Abdel (18 February 2024). "Introduction Pages to the Tigrinya Language". English Tigrigna Dictionary: A Dictionary of the Tigrinya Language. Asmara: Simon Wallenberg Press. ISBN 978-1-84356-006-7.
Further reading
- Eritrean People's Liberation Front (1985). Dictionary, English-Tigrigna-Arabic. Rome: EPLF.
- Eritrean People's Liberation Front (1986). Dictionary, Tigrigna-English, mesgebe qalat tigrinya englizenya. Rome: EPLF.
- Fitzgerald, Colleen. 2006. More on phonological variation in Tigrinya. In Siegbert Uhlig (ed.), 15th International Conference on Ethiopian Studies, 763–768. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
- Girma, Ze'im (1983). Lǝsanä Agʽazi. Asmara: Government Printing Press.
- Kane, Thomas L. (2000). Tigrinya-English Dictionary. Vol. 1–2. Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press. ISBN 1-881265-68-4.
- Mason, John, ed. (1996). Säwasǝw Tǝgrǝñña, Tigrinya Grammar. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. ISBN 0-932415-20-2.
- Täḵlu Räda, Dan'el (1996). Zäbänawi säwasəw qʷanqʷa Təgrəñña ዘበናዊ ሰዋስው ቋንቋ ትግርኛ. Mäx'älä. ISBN 978-99944-994-8-9.Category:CS1 uses Tigrinya-language script (ti) (Ethiopian Calendar year)
- Sahle, Amanuel (1998). Säwasäsǝw Tǝgrǝñña bǝsäfiḥ [A comprehensive Tigrinya grammar]. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. ISBN 1-56902-096-5.
- Praetorius, F. (1974) [1871]. Grammatik der Tigriñasprache in Abessinien. Halle. ISBN 3-487-05191-5.
- Täxästä Täxlä et al. (1989, Eth. Cal.) Mäzgäbä Qalat Təgrəñña bə-Təgrəñña. Addis Ababa: Nəgd matämiya dərəǧǧət.
- Ullendorff, Edward (1985). A Tigrinya Chrestomathy. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. ISBN 3-515-04314-4.
- Voigt, Rainer Maria (1977). Das Tigrinische Verbalsystem. Berlin: D. Reimer.
External links
- Fonts for Geʽez script:
- Noto Serif Ethiopic (multiple weights and widths)
- Abyssinica SIL (Character set support)
- Tigrigna online, includes an online English-Tigrinya dictionary.
- Tigrinya Translate Beta Version
- Sites with Tigrinya text or sound files (all require a Ge'ez Unicode font).
- Christian recordings in Tigrinya: Global Recordings website.
- Tigrina Learning and Playing Game Board – ጸወታ ፍልጠትCategory:Articles containing Ge'ez-language text: It provides for playful learning of the Ge'ez script and all languages which are written with it.
