Tigrinya (Ge'ez ትግርኛ tigriññā, also spelled Tigrigna) is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigray-Tigrinya people in central Eritrea (there referred to as the "Tigrinya" people), where it is one of the main working languages (Eritrea does not have official languages), and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia (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 now living in Israel. Tigrinya is also spoken by the Jeberti (Muslim Tigrinya) in Eritrea. Tigrinya should not be confused with the related Tigre language, which is spoken in the lowland regions in Eritrea to the north and west of the region where Tigrinya is spoken. Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Map of Ethiopia highlighting the Tigray region. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... The Semitic languages are the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the only family of this group spoken in Asia. ... Ethiopic languages is a language group which belongs to the Western branch of the Southern Semitic languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... The Tigray-Tigrinya are an ethnic group who live in Eritrea and the northern highlands of Ethiopias Tigray province. ... Map of Ethiopia highlighting the Tigray region. ... The Beta Israel (Hebrew: , Geez ቤተ፡ እስራኤል BÄ“ta Isrāēl, Amharic BÄ“te Isrāēl, from Aramaic for House of Israel), also known by the term Falasha (Amharic for Exiles or Strangers, as they were called by non-Jewish Ethiopians), a term that may be considered pejorative, are Jews of... The Jeberti (also spelled Jabarti, Jaberti, Jebarti) are a Tigrinya- and Arabic-speaking group mostly found in Eritrea with a wider diaspora community in neighboring countries, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula. ... Tigre is a Semitic language descended from Geez and is closely related to Tigrinya and Amharic. ...

• 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 it differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet.
• In order to view the Tigrinya characters, you will need a Unicode Ge'ez font, such as GF Zemen Unicode or the Abyssinica SIL Font.

Ethiopian Semitic languages (sometimes Ethiopic) is a language group which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

History and literature

The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the disrict of Logosarda, southern Eritrea which date from the 13th century.^[2] Debub is a region of Eritrea, also known as the Southern region. ...

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.^[3]

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 prior to its annexation. Note: This article contains special characters. ...

Speakers

There is no generally agreed on name for the people who speak Tigrinya. A native of Tigray is referred to in Tigrinya as tigrāwāy (male), tigrāweytī (female), tigrāwōt 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 and Amharic as well as in Ge'ez from where all these languages originate. Muslim native Tigrigna speakers are known as the Jeberti, an Arabic name which implies conversion to Islam among Africans and is also used by a Somali sub-clan. Tigray may refer to a place in Ethiopia or a people in Ethiopia: Tigray Region Tigray Province Tigray-Tigrinya people Category: ... Tigre is a Semitic language descended from Geez and is closely related to Tigrinya and Amharic. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Geez language (or Giiz language) is an ancient language that developed in the Ethiopian Highlands of the Horn of Africa as the language of the peasantry. ... Islam (Arabic:  ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. ... The Jeberti (also spelled Jabarti, Jaberti, Jebarti) are a Tigrinya- and Arabic-speaking group mostly found in Eritrea with a wider diaspora community in neighboring countries, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula. ...

In Ethiopia, Tigrinya is the third most spoken language, after Amharic and Oromo, while in Eritrea, Tigrinya is by far the most spoken language (see Demographics of Eritrea). The Oromo language, also known as Afaan Oromo or Oromifaa, is an Afro-Asiatic language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic sub-phylum. ... Eritreas population is comprised of nine ethnic groups, most of which speak Semitic or Cushitic languages. ...

Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically.^[4] However, speakers and readers apparently have no difficulty understanding each other. So far no dialect appears to be accepted as a standard. This article does not pretend 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 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 Ge'ez language 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. Ejective consonants are a class of consonants which may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants in a language. ... A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx. ... Geez (also transliterated Giiz, , and pronounced IPA: ; ISO 639-2 gez) is an ancient South Semitic language that had developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, as the language of the peasantry. ...

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, it is indicated in square brackets. Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

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

The fricative sounds [x], [xʷ], [x'] and [xʷ'] occur as allophones. Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ...

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Labialisation is secondary articulatory feature of sounds in a language, most usually used to refer to consonants. ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx. ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Ejective consonants are a class of consonants which may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants in a language. ... Affricate consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or ) but release as a fricative (such as or or, in a couple of languages, into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the following vowel. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Ejective consonants are a class of consonants which may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants in a language. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Ejective consonants are a class of consonants which may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants in a language. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... 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 (such as the tongue) 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 symbol is different, it is indicated in square brackets. Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Gemination

Gemination, a linguistic term meaning the doubling of a consonantal sound (as in the English word "meanness"), 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. k'ärräbä, "he came near"; k'äräbä, "he was near". All the consonants, with the exception of the pharyngeal and glottal, are amenable to gemination. In phonetics, consonant length is when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. ... A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx. ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ...

Allophones

The velar consonants /k/ and /k'/ are pronounced differently when they appear immediately after a vowel and are not geminated. In these circumstances, /k/ is pronounced as a velar fricative. /k'/ 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 with [x']). This velar or uvular ejective fricative (or affricate) is a very unusual sound, perhaps unique to Tigrinya. Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Affricate consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or ) but release as a fricative (such as or or, in a couple of languages, into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the following vowel. ... Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. ...

Since these two sounds are completely conditioned by their environments, they can be considered allophones 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 {bky}, there are forms such as ምብካይ mǝbkay (to cry) and በኸየ bäxäyä (he cried), and for the verb meaning steal, which has the triconsonantal root {srk'}, there are forms such as ይሰርቁ yǝsärk'u (they steal) and ይሰርቕ yǝsärrǝx' (he steals). In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

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 /ǝ/, 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) ǝ is introduced before the suffix. For example, In poetry and phonetics, epenthesis (, from Greek epi on + en in + thesis putting) is the insertion of a consonant, a vowel, or a whole syllable into a word, usually to facilitate pronunciation. ...

• ከብዲ käbdi 'stomach', ልቢ lǝbbi 'heart'
• -äy 'my', ከብደይ käbdäy 'my stomach', ልበይ lǝbbäy 'my heart'
• -ka 'your (masc.)', ከብድኻ käbdǝxa 'your (masc.) stomach', ልብኻ lǝbbǝxa 'your (masc.) heart'
• -n...-n 'and', ከብድን ልብን käbdǝn lǝbbǝn '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

In order to view the Tigrinya characters in this article, you will need a Unicode Geez font, such as GF Zemen Unicode. ...

Typical grammatical features

Grammatically, Tigrinya is a typical Ethiopian Semitic (ES) language in most ways: Ethiopian Semitic languages (sometimes Ethiopic) is a language group which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. ...

• 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 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, ፈረስ färäs 'horse', ኣፍራሰ ’afras '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, ጽቡቕ s'ǝbbux' 'good (m.sg.)', ጽብቕቲ s'ǝbbǝx'ti 'good (f.sg.)', ጽቡቓት s'ǝbbux'at 'good (pl.)'
• Within personal pronouns and subject agreement inflections on verbs, gender is distinguished in second person as well as third. For example, ተዛረብ täzaräb 'speak! (m.sg.)', ተዛረቢ täzaräbi 'speak (f.sg.)'.
• Possessive adjectives take the form of noun suffixes: ገዛ gäza 'house', ገዛይ gäza-y 'my house', ገዛኺ gäza-xi 'your (f.sg.) house'.
• Verbs are based on consonantal roots, most consisting of three consonants: {sbr} 'break', ሰበረ säbärä 'he broke', ይሰብር yǝsäbbǝr 'he breaks', ምስባር 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: ሰበሩ säbär-u 'they broke', ይሰብሩ 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 ተዛረብ gädifka täzaräb 'stop (that) and speak (m.sg.)'.
• Verbs also have a separate jussive/imperative form, similar to the imperfective: ይስበሩ 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: ፈለጡ fälät'-u 'they knew', ተፈልጡ tä-fält'-u 'they were known', ኣፈልጡ ’a-fält'-u 'they caused to know (they introduced)', ተፋለጡ tä-falät'-u 'they knew each other', ኣፋለጡ ’a-f-falät'-u 'they caused to know each other'.
• Verbs may take direct object and prepositional pronoun suffixes: ፈለጠኒ fälät'ä-nni 'he knew me', ፈለጠለይ fälät'ä-lläy 'he knew for me'.
• Negation is expressed through the prefix ay- and, in independent clauses, the suffix -n: ኣይፈለጠን ay-fälät'ä-n 'he didn't know'.
• The copula and the verb of existence in the present are irregular: ኣሎ ’allo 'there is, he exists', እዩ ǝyyu 'he is', የለን or የልቦን yällän or yälbon 'there isn't, he doesn't exist', ኣይኰነን aykʷänän 'he isn't', ነበረ näbärä 'he existed, he was, there was', ይኸውን yǝ-xäwwǝn 'he will be', ይነብር 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'): ኣሎኒ ’allo-nni 'I have, I must' (lit. 'there is (to) me').
• Relative clauses are expressed by a prefix attached to the verb: ዝፈለጠ zǝ-fälät'ä 'who knew'
• Cleft sentences, with relative clauses normally following the copula, are very common: መን እዩ ዝፈለጠ män ǝyyu zǝ-fälät'ä '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 ረኺቡዋ ḥagʷäs nǝ’almaz räxibuwwa 'Hagos met Almaz'.
• As in other modern ES languages, the default word order in clauses is subject-object-verb, and noun modifiers usually (though not always in Tigrinya) precede their head nouns.

Noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a base morpheme to form a word. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ... Personal pronouns are pronouns that refer to objects of a sentence, usually (but not always), people or animals. ... In languages, agreement is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. ... In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification or marking of a word (or more precisely lexeme) to reflect grammatical (that is, relational) information, such as gender, tense, number or person. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, one of which possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc. ... The root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. ... In the terminology used to discuss the grammar of the Semitic languages, a triliteral is a root containing a sequence of three consonants. ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... Conjugation may refer to: Grammatical conjugation, the modification of runnign a verb from its basic form Latin conjugation, Spanish conjugation and The English verb, each with complex conjugation forms Marriage, relationship between two individuals In mathematics: Complex conjugation, the operation which multiplies the imaginary part of a complex number by... The jussive mood is a grammatical mood that indicates commands, permission or agreement with a request. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... In linguistics, derivation is the process of creating new lexemes from other lexemes, for example, by adding a derivational affix. ... In grammar, voice is the relationship between the action or state expressed by a verb, and its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... Reflexive voice refers to where the subject of a sentence is both the subject and an object or indirect object of the sentence. ... In grammar, a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action. ... A reciprocal is a linguistic structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between grammatical agents. ... An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ... In grammar, an adposition is any of a wide variety of particles and affixes which are attached to a noun phrase (their object) in order to modify the noun phrase or show its relation to another concept or situation in the same clause. ... Negation (i. ... In grammar, an independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a grammatically viable simple sentence. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... It has been suggested that Regular verb be merged into this article or section. ... A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun. ... A cleft sentence is a way of focusing on a particular part of a sentence. ... The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. ... In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases). ... An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ... Word order, in linguistic typology, refers to the order in which words appear in sentences across different languages. ...

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: ንስኻ nǝssǝxa 'you (m.sg.)', ኣታ ’atta 'you! (m.sg.)'.
• There is a definite article, related (as in English) to the demonstrative adjective meaning 'that': እታ ጓል ’ǝta gʷal 'the girl'.
• The gerundive form is used for past tense, as well as for the linking function as in Ge'ez and Amharic: ተዛሪቡ täzaribu '(he) speaking, he spoke'.
• Yes-no questions are marked by the particle ዶ do following the questioned word: ሓፍተይዶ ርኢኺ ḥaftäydo rǝ’ixi 'did you (f.sg.) see my sister?'.
• The negative circumfix ay- -n may mark nouns, pronouns, and adjectives as well as verbs: ኣይኣነን ay-’anä-n 'not me', ኣይዓብይን ay‘abǝy-ǝn '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 (እዩ ǝyyu, etc.), the verb of existence (ኣሎ ’allo, etc.), and the verbs ነበረ näbärä 'exist, live', ኮነ konä 'become', ጸንሔ s'änḥe 'stay'.
• Tigrinya has compound prepositions corresponding to the preposition-postposition compounds found in Amharic: ኣብ ልዕሊ ዓራት ab lǝ‘li ‘arat 'on (top of) the bed', ኣብ ትሕቲ ዓራት ab tǝḥti ‘arat 'under the bed'
• Unlike most ES languages, Tigrinya has only one set of prepositional object verb suffixes, used both for the dative and benefactive and for locative and adversative senses: ተቐሚጣሉ täx'ämmit'a-llu 'she sat down for him' or 'she sat down on it' or 'she sat down to his detriment'.

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... The benefactive case is a case used where English would use for, for the benefit of, or intended for. ... Locative is a case which indicates a location. ...

Writing system

Tigrinya is written in the Ge'ez script, originally developed for the now-extinct Ge'ez language. The Ge'ez 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. 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. Note: This article contains special characters. ... Geez (also transliterated Giiz, , and pronounced IPA: ; ISO 639-2 gez) is an ancient South Semitic language that had developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, as the language of the peasantry. ... An abugida or alphasyllabary is a writing system composed of signs (graphemes) denoting consonants with an inherent following vowel, which are consistently modified to indicate other vowels (or, in some cases, the lack of a vowel). ...

For each consonant in an abugida, there is an unmarked symbol representing that consonant followed by a canonical or inherent vowel. 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+ə form is used (the symbol in the sixth column). For example, the word ’ǝntay 'what?' is written እንታይ, literally ’ǝ-nǝ-ta-yǝ. An inherent vowel is part of an abugida script. ...

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 k'ärräbä 'he approached', k'äräbä 'he was near' are both written ቀረበ. Since such minimal pairs are very rare, this presents no problem to readers of the language. In phonetics, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phoneme and have a distinct meaning. ...

See also

• UCLA Language Materials Project

The UCLA Language Materials Project (LMP) http://www. ...

References

1. ^ In 2005, Ethnologue estimated a total of 4.45 million Tigrinya speakers ranging over all countries; 3.2 million in Ethiopia, 1.2 million in Eritrea, 10,000 Beta Israels in Israel (the remaining 15,000 are unaccounted for).[1] The Tigrinya ethnic group, almost entirely Tigrinya speaking^{[citation needed]}, is estimated at 3.3 million by Ethnologue, whereas other estimates indicate 4.3 million in Ethiopia (CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.3.), 2.4 million in Eritrea (July 2006).[2]
2. ^ UCLA Language Materials Project Language Profiles Page: Tigrinya. UCLA. Retrieved on November 10, 2006.
3. ^ Ministry of Information (1944) The First to be Freed - The record of British military administration in Eritrea and Somalia, 1941-1943. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.
4. ^ Leslau, Wolf (1941) Documents Tigrigna (Éthiopien Septentrional): Grammaire et Textes. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck.

The Beta Israel (Hebrew: , Geez ቤተ፡ እስራኤል Bēta Isrāēl, Amharic Bēte Isrāēl, from Aramaic for House of Israel), also known by the term Falasha (Amharic for Exiles or Strangers, as they were called by non-Jewish Ethiopians), a term that may be considered pejorative, are Jews of... November 10 is the 314th day of the year (315th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 51 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

Bibliography

• Amanuel Sahle (1998) Säwasäsǝw Tǝgrǝñña bǝsäfiḥ. Lawrencevill, NJ, USA: Red Sea Press. ISBN 1-56902-096-5
• Dan'el Täxlu Räda (1996, Eth. Cal.) Zäbänawi säwasəw kʷ'ankʷ'a Təgrəñña. Mäx'älä
• Eritrean People's Liberation Front (1985) Dictionary, English-Tigrigna-Arabic. Rome: EPLF.
• Kane, Thomas L. (2000) Tigrinya-English Dictionary (2 vols). Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press. ISBN 1-881265-68-4
• Leslau, Wolf (1941) Documents tigrigna: grammaire et textes. Paris: Libraire C. Klincksieck.
• Mason, John (Ed.) (1996) Säwasǝw Tǝgrǝñña, 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.) Mäzgäbä k'alat Təgrəñña bə-Təgrəñña. Addis Ababa: Nəgd matämiya dərəǧǧət.
• Ullendorff, E. (1985) A Tigrinya Chrestomathy. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. ISBN 3-515-04314-4
• Ze'im Girma (1983) Lǝsanä Ag’azi. Asmara: Government Printing Press.

Wolf Leslau (November 14, 1906 - November 18, 2006) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languages of Ethiopia. ... Edward Ullendorff (b. ...

External links

Tigrinya language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tigrinya language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus

• Ethnologue entry for Tigrinya
• Tigrinya classes for children of Tigrinya-speaking immigrants in Sweden, including teaching materials.
• Sites with Tigrinya text or sound files (all require a Ge'ez Unicode font such as GF Zemen Unicode).
  • Asmarino: Eritrean exile site.
  • Meskerem: "Eritrean opposition" website.
  • Eritrean government site with links to Haddas Ertra, the daily Tigrinya newspaper in Eritrea.
  • Christian recordings in Tigrinya: Global Recordings website.