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Tigrinya ( ????, tigriñña), also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language
Semitic languages

File:Amarna Akkadian letter.pngThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa....
 spoken by the Tigray-Tigrinya people
Tigray-Tigrinya people

For other uses please see TigreThe Tigray-Tigrinya are an ethnic group who live in the southern, central and northern parts of Eritrea and the northern highlands of Ethiopia's Tigray province....
 in Tigray [Northern Ethiopia] and in central Eritrea
Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the Country of Eritrea, is a country in Northeast Africa. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast....
 (there referred to as the "Tigrinya" people), where it is one of the two official languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region
Tigray Region

For other uses please see TigreTigray Region is the northernmost of the nine Regions of Ethiopia of Ethiopia containing the homeland of the Tigray-Tigrinya people....
 of Ethiopia
Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast....
 (whose speakers are called "Tigray"), where it also has official status, and among groups of emigrants from these regions, including some of the Beta Israel
Beta Israel

The Beta Israel is the Jewish community originating in Ethiopia, but now most of which lives in Israel. They are also known as Falasha by non-Jewish Ethiopians, but this term is considered pejorative....
 now living in Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
.






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Tigrinya ( ????, tigriñña), also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language
Semitic languages

File:Amarna Akkadian letter.pngThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa....
 spoken by the Tigray-Tigrinya people
Tigray-Tigrinya people

For other uses please see TigreThe Tigray-Tigrinya are an ethnic group who live in the southern, central and northern parts of Eritrea and the northern highlands of Ethiopia's Tigray province....
 in Tigray [Northern Ethiopia] and in central Eritrea
Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the Country of Eritrea, is a country in Northeast Africa. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast....
 (there referred to as the "Tigrinya" people), where it is one of the two official languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region
Tigray Region

For other uses please see TigreTigray Region is the northernmost of the nine Regions of Ethiopia of Ethiopia containing the homeland of the Tigray-Tigrinya people....
 of Ethiopia
Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast....
 (whose speakers are called "Tigray"), where it also has official status, and among groups of emigrants from these regions, including some of the Beta Israel
Beta Israel

The Beta Israel is the Jewish community originating in Ethiopia, but now most of which lives in Israel. They are also known as Falasha by non-Jewish Ethiopians, but this term is considered pejorative....
 now living in Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
. Tigrinya is also spoken by the Jeberti
Jeberti

The Jeberti are a Tigrinya language- and Arabic language-speaking group mostly found in Eritrea with a wider diaspora community in neighboring countries, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula....
 (Muslim Tigrinya) in Eritrea. Tigrinya should not be confused with the related Tigre language
Tigre language

For other uses please see TigreTigre is a Semitic languages language that closely resembles the Ge'ez language in its purest form and it is also closely related to Tigrinya language....
, which is spoken in the lowland regions in Eritrea to the north and west of the region where Tigrinya is spoken.

  • 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
    Ethiopian Semitic languages

    Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian, forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. Today, the name Ethiopian can be considered a misnomer, as the North languages are also found in Eritrea, with two of them being exclusively used there; however, the term came into use before Eritrea had...
    , but it differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet
    International Phonetic Alphabet

    The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
    .


History and literature

The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the district of Logosarda, southern Eritrea
Debub

Debub is a regions of Eritrea of Eritrea, also known as the Southern region. This region lies along a portion of the national border with Ethiopia....
 which date from the 13th century.

In Eritrea, during British administration, the Ministry of information put out a weekly newspaper in Tigrinya which cost 5 cents and sold 5,000 copies weekly. At the time it was reported to be the first of its kind.

Tigrinya (along with Arabic) was one of Eritrea's official languages during its short-lived federation with Ethiopia; in 1958 it was replaced with Amharic
Amharic language

Amharic is a Semitic languages spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara people. It is the second most spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic language, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia....
 prior to its annexation. Upon Eritrea's independence in 1993, Tigrinya retained the status of "working language" in the country, the only state in the world to date, to award Tigrinya recognition on a national level.

Speakers

There is no generally agreed upon name for the people who speak Tigrinya. A native of Tigray
Tigray

Tigray may refer to:* Tigray Region* Tigray Province* Tigray people...
 is referred to in Tigrinya as (male), (female), or tegaru (plural). In Eritrea, Tigrinya speakers are officially known as the Bihér-Tigrigna which means nation of Tigrigna/Tigrinya speakers. Bihér roughly means nation in the ethnic sense of the word in Tigrinya, Tigre
Tigre language

For other uses please see TigreTigre is a Semitic languages language that closely resembles the Ge'ez language in its purest form and it is also closely related to Tigrinya language....
 and Amharic as well as in Ge'ez
Ge'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court....
 from where all these languages originate. Muslim
Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
 native Tigrigna speakers are known as the Jeberti
Jeberti

The Jeberti are a Tigrinya language- and Arabic language-speaking group mostly found in Eritrea with a wider diaspora community in neighboring countries, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula....
, an Arabic name which implies conversion to Islam among Africans and is also used by a Somali sub-clan.

In Ethiopia, Tigrinya is the third most spoken language, after Amharic and Oromo
Oromo language

Oromo, also known as Afaan borana Oromoo, Oromiffa , and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names , is an Afro-Asiatic languages language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic languages family....
, while in Eritrea, Tigrinya is by far the most spoken language (see Demographics of Eritrea
Demographics of Eritrea

This article is about the demographics features of the population of Eritrea, including population density, Ethnic group, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
). Tigrigna is spoken by large immigrant communities around the world, there among Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and Sweden.

Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically. So far no dialect appears to be accepted as a standard. This article does not intend to cover dialectal variation.

Phonology


Consonant phonemes

Tigrinya has a fairly typical set of phonemes for an Ethiopian Semitic language. That is, there is a set of ejective consonant
Ejective consonant

In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspiration or tenuis consonants....
s and the usual seven-vowel system. Unlike many of the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has preserved the two pharyngeal consonant
Pharyngeal consonant

A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...
s which were apparently part of the ancient Ge'ez language
Ge'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court....
 and which, along with [x'], a velar or 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
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
 symbol is different, it is indicated in square brackets.

The consonant /v/ appears in parentheses because it occurs only in recent borrowings from European languages.

The fricative sounds
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
 , , and occur as allophones.

 Consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
s
Bilabial
Bilabial consonant

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
/
Labiodental
Labiodental consonant

In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants Place of articulation with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
Dental
Dental consonant

In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages....
Palato-alveolar
Postalveolar consonant

Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate ....
/
Palatal
Palatal consonant

Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate . Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex consonant....
Velar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
Pharyngeal
Pharyngeal consonant

A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...
Glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Plain Labialized
Stops
Stop consonant

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
 and
affricates
Affricate consonant

Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel....
Voiceless
Voice (phonetics)

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sound, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced....
 
Voiced
Voice (phonetics)

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sound, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced....
  
Ejective
Ejective consonant

In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspiration or tenuis consonants....
  
Fricatives
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
Voiceless
Voice (phonetics)

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sound, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced....
Voiced
Voice (phonetics)

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sound, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced....
(v)   
Ejective
Ejective consonant

In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspiration or tenuis consonants....
    
Nasals
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....
    
Approximants
Approximant consonant

Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and "typical" consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence....
    
Flap/Trill
Flap consonant

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another....
      


Vowel phonemes

The sounds are shown using the same system for representing the sounds as in the rest of the article. When the IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
 symbol is different, it is indicated in square brackets.

Vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s
FrontCentralBack
High
Mid
Low  


Gemination

Gemination, a linguistic term meaning 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. , "he presented, he brought forth"; , "he came closer". All the consonants, with the exception of the pharyngeal
Pharyngeal consonant

A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...
 and glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
, are amenable to gemination.

Allophones

The velar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
 consonants /k/ and /k'/ are pronounced differently when they appear immediately after a vowel and are not geminated
Gemination

In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic language, Estonian language, Finnish language, Russian language, Hebrew language, Hungarian language, Italian language, Japanese language, L...
. In these circumstances, /k/ is pronounced as a velar fricative
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
. /k'/ is pronounced as a fricative, or sometimes as an affricate
Affricate consonant

Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel....
. This fricative or affricate is more often pronounced further back, in the uvular
Uvular consonant

Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the Palatine uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants....
 place of articulation (although it is represented in this article with [x']). 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 allophone
Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
s of /k/ and /k'/. 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 , there are forms such as ???? (to cry) and ??? bäxäyä (he cried), and for the verb meaning steal, which has the triconsonantal root , there are forms such as ???? (they steal) and ???? (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
Epenthesis

In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence and anaptyxis ....
 vowel //, 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) is introduced before the suffix. For example,
  • ??? käbdi 'stomach', ?? 'heart'
  • -äy 'my', ???? käbdäy 'my stomach', ??? 'my heart'
  • -ka 'your (masc.)', ???? 'your (masc.) stomach', ??? 'your (masc.) heart'
  • -n...-n 'and', ???? ??? '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

Main article: Tigrinya grammar
Tigrinya grammar

In order to view the Ge'ez alphabet in this article, you will need a Unicode Ge'ez font, such as [ftp://ftp.ethiopic.org/pub/fonts/TrueType/gfzemenu.ttf GF Zemen Unicode]....

Typical grammatical features

Grammatically, Tigrinya is a typical Ethiopian Semitic (ES) language
Ethiopian Semitic languages

Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian, forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. Today, the name Ethiopian can be considered a misnomer, as the North languages are also found in Eritrea, with two of them being exclusively used there; however, the term came into use before Eritrea had...
  in most ways:
  • A Tigrinya noun
    Noun

    In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
     is treated as either masculine or feminine
    Grammatical gender

    In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
    . However, most inanimate nouns do not have a fixed gender.
  • Tigrinya nouns have plural
    Grammatical number

    In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
    , 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 Ge'ez (as well as Arabic), noun plurals may be formed through internal changes ("broken" plural) as well as through the addition of suffixes. For example, ??? färäs 'horse', ???? '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, ??? 'good (m.sg.)', ???? 'good (f.sg.)', ???? 'good (pl.)'
  • Within personal pronouns and subject agreement
    Agreement (linguistics)

    In languages, agreement is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when one word changes in form depending on to which other words it is being related....
     inflection
    Inflection

    In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
    s on verb
    Verb

    In syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood and grammatical voice....
    s, gender is distinguished in second person
    Grammatical person

    Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns....
     as well as third. For example, ???? 'speak! (m.sg.)', ???? 'speak (f.sg.)'.
  • Possessive
    Possession (linguistics)

    Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possession the referent of the other....
     adjectives take the form of noun suffixes: ?? gäza 'house', ??? gäza-y 'my house', ??? gäza-xi 'your (f.sg.) house'.
  • Verbs are based on consonantal roots
    Root (linguistics)

    The root is the primary lexicology unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantics content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
    , most consisting of three consonants
    Triliteral

    The root of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" . Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the derivation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate...
    : 'break', ??? säbärä 'he broke', ???? 'he breaks', ???? 'to break'.
  • Within the tense
    Grammatical tense

    Grammatical tense is a temporal language quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, and grammatical person, which verb forms may express....
     system there is a basic distinction between the perfective form, conjugated
    Conjugation

    Conjugation may refer to:*Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form, including:**Latin conjugation**Spanish conjugation...
     with suffixes and denoting the past, and the imperfective form, conjugated with prefixes and in some cases suffixes, and denoting the present or future: ??? säbär-u 'they broke', ???? '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: ???? ???? gädifka täzaräb 'stop (that) and speak (m.sg.)'.
  • Verbs also have a separate jussive/imperative
    Imperative mood

    The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests. It is also used to signal a prohibition, permission or any other kind of exhortation....
     form, similar to the imperfective: ???? 'let them break'.
  • Through the addition of derivational
    Derivation (linguistics)

    In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine....
     morphology (internal changes to verb stems and/or prefixes), verbs may be made passive, reflexive, causative, frequentative
    Frequentative

    In grammar, a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action. The frequentative form can be considered a separate, but not completely independent word, called a frequentative....
    , reciprocal
    Reciprocal (grammar)

    A reciprocal is a Linguistics structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between two noun phrases. In a reciprocal construction, each of the thematic role occupies both the role of agent and patient with respect to each other....
    , or reciprocal causative: ??? fälät'-u 'they knew', ???? tä-fält'-u 'they were known', ???? ’a-fält'-u 'they caused to know (they introduced)', ???? tä-falät'-u 'they knew each other', ???? ’a-f-falät'-u 'they caused to know each other'.
  • Verbs may take direct object
    Object (grammar)

    An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence Predicate . It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb....
     and prepositional
    Adposition

    In grammar, a preposition is a part of speech that introduces a adpositional phrase. For example, in the sentence "The cat sleeps on the sofa", the word "on" is a preposition, introducing the prepositional phrase "on the sofa"....
     pronoun suffixes: ???? fälät'ä-nni 'he knew me', ????? fälät'ä-lläy 'he knew for me'.
  • Negation
    Negation

    In logic and mathematics, negation or not is an operation on logical values, for example, the logical value of a proposition, that sends true to false and false to true....
     is expressed through the prefix ay- and, in independent clause
    Independent clause

    An independent clause is a clause that can stand by itself as a grammatically viable simple sentence. Independent clauses express a complete thought and contain a Subject and a Predicate ....
    s, the suffix -n: ?????? ay-fälät'ä-n 'he didn't know'.
  • The copula
    Copula

    In linguistics, a copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate . Although it might not itself express an action or condition, it serves to equate the subject with the predicate....
     and the verb of existence in the present are irregular
    Irregular verb

    In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of grammatical conjugation in the languages in which they occur....
    : ?? ’allo 'there is, he exists', ?? 'he is', ??? or ???? yällän or yälbon 'there isn't, he doesn't exist', ????? 'he isn't', ??? näbärä 'he existed, he was, there was', ???? 'he will be', ???? 'he will exist, there will be'.
  • The verb of existence together with object suffixes for the possessor expresses possession ('have') and obligation ('must'): ??? ’allo-nni 'I have, I must' (lit. 'there is (to) me').
  • Relative clause
    Relative clause

    A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun. For example, the noun phrase the man who wasn't there contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there....
    s are expressed by a prefix attached to the verb: ???? 'who knew'
  • Cleft sentences, with relative clauses normally following the copula, are very common: ?? ?? ???? 'who knew?' (lit. 'who is he who knew?').
  • There is an accusative
    Accusative case

    The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
     marker used on definite
    Definiteness

    In grammar, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
     direct objects
    Object (grammar)

    An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence Predicate . It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb....
    . In Tigrinya this is the prefix . For example, ??? ????? ???? 'Hagos met Almaz'.
  • As in other modern ES languages, the default word order
    Word order

    In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other, and the systematic correspondences of between these arrangements....
     in clauses is subject-object-verb, and noun modifiers usually (though not always in Tigrinya) precede their head nouns.


Peculiarities of Tigrinya grammar

Tigrinya grammar is unique within ES in several ways:
  • For second person pronouns, there is a separate vocative form, used to get a person's attention: ??? 'you (m.sg.)', ?? ’atta 'you! (m.sg.)'.
  • There is a definite article, related (as in English) to the demonstrative adjective meaning 'that': ?? ?? 'the girl'.
  • The gerundive form is used for past tense, as well as for the linking function as in Ge'ez and Amharic: ???? täzaribu '(he) speaking, he spoke'.
  • Yes-no questions are marked by the particle ? do following the questioned word: ????? ??? 'did you (f.sg.) see my sister?'.
  • The negative circumfix ay- -n may mark nouns, pronouns, and adjectives as well as verbs: ????? 'not me', ?????? 'not big'
  • Tigrinya has an unusually complex tense/aspect system, with many nuances achieved using combinations of the three basic tense/aspect forms (perfect, imperfect, gerundive) and various auxiliary verbs including the copula (?? ?yyu, etc.), the verb of existence (?? ’allo, etc.), and the verbs ??? näbärä 'exist, live', ?? konä 'become', ??? 'stay'.
  • Tigrinya has compound prepositions corresponding to the preposition-postposition compounds found in Amharic: ?? ??? ??? 'on (top of) the bed', ?? ??? ??? 'under the bed'
  • Unlike most ES languages, Tigrinya has only one set of prepositional object verb suffixes, used both for the dative
    Dative case

    The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
     and benefactive
    Benefactive case

    The benefactive case is a declension used where English language would use "for", "for the benefit of", or "intended for", e.g. "She opened the door for Tom" or "This book is for Bob"....
     and for locative
    Locative case

    Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases together with the lative case and separative case case....
     and adversative senses: ????? täx'ämmit'a-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 Ge'ez script
Ge'ez alphabet

Ge'ez , also called Ethiopic, is an abugida script that was originally developed to write Ge'ez language, a Semitic languages. In communities that use it, such as the Amharic language and Tigrinya language, the script is called , which means "script" or "alphabet"....
, originally developed for the now-extinct Ge'ez language
Ge'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court....
. Ge'ez and its script are also called "Ethiopic." The Ge'ez script is an abugida
Abugida

An 'abugida' is a segment writing system which is based on consonants but in which vowel notation is obligatory. About half the writing systems in the world are abugidas, including the extensive Brahmic family of scripts used in South and Southeast Asia....
: 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. In the table below the columns are assigned to the seven vowels of Tigrinya (and Ge'ez); 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
Inherent vowel

An inherent vowel is part of an abugida script. It is the vowel sound which is used with each unmarked or basic consonant symbol.There are many abugida scripts, Indic scripts for example, that use such characters as base graphemes, from which the syllables are built up....
. For the Ge'ez 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 in the rows for those consonants are pronounced with the vowel /a/, exactly as in the fourth row. 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+ form is used (the symbol in the sixth column). For example, the word 'what?' is written ????, literally .

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 /h/, /s/, and /s'/. In Eritrea, for /s/ and /s'/, 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 'he approached', 'he was near' are both written ???. Since such minimal pairs are very rare, this presents no problem to readers of the language.

Tigrinya writing system
 äuiaeo
h???????
l???????
???????
m???????
s???????
r???????
s???????
???????
k'???????
? ???? 
x'???????
? ???? 
b???????
v???????
t???????
???????
h???????
n???????
ñ???????
’???????
k???????
? ???? 
x???????
? ???? 
w???????
‘???????
z???????
???????
y???????
d???????
???????
g???????
? ???? 
t'???????
???????
p'???????
s'???????
s'???????
f???????
p???????


See also

  • UCLA Language Materials Project
    UCLA Language Materials Project

    The UCLA Language Materials Project http://www.lmp.ucla.edu maintains a web resource about teaching materials for some 150 languages that are Less Commonly Taught Languages in the United States....


Bibliography

  • Amanuel Sahle (1998) . Lawrencevill, NJ, USA: Red Sea Press. ISBN 1-56902-096-5
  • Dan'el Täxlu Räda (1996, Eth. Cal.) .
  • Rehman, Abdel. English Tigrigna Dictionary: A Dictionary of the Tigrinya Language: (Asmara) Simon Wallenberg Press. Introduction Pages to the Tigrinya Language ISBN 1843560062
  • Eritrean People's Liberation Front (1985) Dictionary, English-Tigrigna-Arabic. Rome: EPLF.
  • ----- (1986) Dictionary, Tigrigna-English, mesgebe qalat tigrinya englizenya. Rome: EPLF.
  • Kane, Thomas L. (2000) Tigrinya-English Dictionary (2 vols). Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press. ISBN 1-881265-68-4
  • Leslau, Wolf
    Wolf Leslau

    Wolf Leslau was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languages of Ethiopia....
     (1941)     Documents tigrigna: grammaire et textes. Paris: Libraire C. Klincksieck.
  • Mason, John (Ed.) (1996) , Tigrinya Grammar. Lawrenceville, NJ, USA: Red Sea Press. ISBN 0-932415-20-2 (ISBN 0-932415-21-0, paperback)
  • Praetorius, F. (1871) Grammatik der Tigriñasprache in Abessinien. Halle. ISBN 3-487-05191-5 (1974 reprint)
  • Täxästä Täxlä et al. (1989, Eth. Cal.) . Addis Ababa: .
  • Ullendorff, E.
    Edward Ullendorff

    Edward Ullendorff is a British academic, and an authority on Semitic languages and Ethiopia. He is now Professor Emeritus at SOAS, where he was Professor of Ethiopian Studies and then of Semitic Languages....
     (1985)     A Tigrinya Chrestomathy. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. ISBN 3-515-04314-4
  • Ze'im Girma (1983) . Asmara: Government Printing Press.


External links

  • , including teaching materials.
  • , includes an online English-Tigrinya dictionary.
  • Sites with Tigrinya text or sound files (all require a Ge'ez Unicode font such as [ftp://ftp.ethiopic.org/pub/fonts/TrueType/gfzemenu.ttf GF Zemen Unicode]).
    • : Eritrean exile site.
    • : "Eritrean opposition" website.
    • , the daily Tigrinya newspaper in Eritrea.
    • : website.
    • : Most beautiful Tigrinya / German Picture Book with fabulous tales from Eastafrica.
    • : It provides for playfull learning the Geez script and all languages which are written with Geez alphabets.