Tigrinya language
Encyclopedia
Tigrinya also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language
spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea
(there referred to as the "Tigrinya" people), where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region
of Ethiopia
(whose speakers are called "Tigray"), where it has official status, and among groups of emigrants from these regions, including some of the Beta Israel
now living in Israel
.
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.
The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the district of Logosarda, southern Eritrea
, which dates from the 13th century.
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.
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. Upon Eritrea's independence in 1991, 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.
A native of Tigray
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 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 which all these languages originate. Muslim
native Tigrigna speakers are known as the Jeberti
, an Arabic name which implies conversion to Islam among Horn Africans.
Tigrinya is the third most spoken language in Ethiopia, after Amharic and Oromo
, and by far the most spoken in Eritrea (see Demographics of Eritrea
). It is also spoken by large immigrant communities around the world, in countries including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically.
No dialect appears to be accepted as a standard.
That is, there is a set of ejective consonant
s
and the usual seven-vowel system.
Unlike many of the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has preserved the two
pharyngeal consonant
s 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.
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.
The consonant /v/ appears in parentheses because it occurs only in recent borrowings from European languages.
The fricative sounds
[x], [xʷ], [xʼ] and [xʷʼ] occur as allophones.
symbol is different, it is indicated in square brackets.
and glottal
, can be geminated.
consonants /k/ and /kʼ/ are pronounced differently when they appear immediately after a vowel and are not geminated
. In these circumstances, /k/ is pronounced as
a velar fricative
. /kʼ/ 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]). 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
s of /k/ and /kʼ/.
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 /məbkaj/ ('to cry') and /bɐxɐjɐ/ ('he cried'), and for the verb meaning 'steal', which has the triconsonantal root |srkʼ|, there are forms such as /jəsɐrkʼu/ ('they steal') and /jəsɐrrəxʼ/ ('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.
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 , 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'
Stress is neither contrastive nor particularly salient in Tigrinya.
It seems to depend on gemination, but it has apparently not been systematically investigated.
in most ways:
, originally developed for the Ge'ez language
, now used only in liturgical and classical texts. Ge'ez and its script are also called Ethiopic. 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.
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+ 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 /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 'he approached', 'he was near' are both written . Since such minimal pairs are very rare, this presents no problem to readers of the language.
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. 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 main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region
Tigray Region
Tigray Region is the northernmost of the nine ethnic regions of Ethiopia containing the homeland of the Tigray people. It was formerly known as Region 1...
of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
(whose speakers are called "Tigray"), where it has official status, and among groups of emigrants from these regions, including some of the Beta Israel
Beta Israel
Beta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
now living in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
Tigrinya should not be confused with the related Tigre language
Tigre language
For other uses please see Tigre Tigre is a Semitic language, which, along with Tigrinya, is believed to be one of direct descendants of the extinct Ge'ez language...
, which is spoken in the lowland regions in Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
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 languagesEthiopian Semitic languagesEthiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
, but it differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic AlphabetInternational Phonetic AlphabetThe 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
Although it differs markedly from the classical Ge'ez (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 (as in Ethiopic), there is a strong influence of Ge'ez on Tigrinya literature, especially with terms that relate to Christian life, Biblical names, and so on. Ge'ez, because of its status within Ethiopian culture, and possibly also because of its inherently simple construction, acted as a literary medium until relatively recent times .The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the district of Logosarda, southern Eritrea
Debub
Debub Region, also known as the Southern Region, is a region of Eritrea. It lies along a portion of the national border with Ethiopia.-Overview:...
, which dates from the 13th century.
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.
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 language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...
prior to its annexation. Upon Eritrea's independence in 1991, 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 Region
Tigray Region is the northernmost of the nine ethnic regions of Ethiopia containing the homeland of the Tigray people. It was formerly known as Region 1...
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 Tigrinya speakers. Bihér roughly means nation in the ethnic sense of the word in Tigrinya, Tigre
Tigre language
For other uses please see Tigre Tigre is a Semitic language, which, along with Tigrinya, is believed to be one of direct descendants of the extinct Ge'ez language...
and Amharic as well as in Ge'ez
Ge'ez language
Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
from which all these languages originate. Muslim
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
native Tigrigna speakers are known as the Jeberti
Jeberti
The Jeberti are an ethnic group mostly found in Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea with a wider diaspora community in neighboring countries, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula...
, an Arabic name which implies conversion to Islam among Horn Africans.
Tigrinya is the third most spoken language in Ethiopia, after Amharic and Oromo
Oromo language
Oromo, also known as Afaan Oromo, Oromiffa, Afan Boran, Afan Orma, and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names , is an Afro-Asiatic language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic family. Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by more than 25 million Oromo and...
, and by far the most spoken in Eritrea (see Demographics of Eritrea
Demographics of Eritrea
The demographics of Eritrea describes the condition and overview of Eritrea's inhabitants. Demographic topics include basic education, health and population statistics, as well as identified ethnic and religious affiliations.-Ethnic groups:...
). It is also spoken by large immigrant communities around the world, in countries including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically.
No dialect appears to be accepted as a standard.
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 aspirated 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 IPA: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 northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
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 articulators 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 , the final consonant of Bach; or...
[x], [xʷ], [xʼ] and [xʷʼ] occur as allophones.
| 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 articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Palato-alveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, 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... |
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 velum).... |
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 IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Lab. | |||||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
[ɲ] | |||||||
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
voiceless Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
[tʃ] | [kʷ] | [ʔ] | ||||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
[dʒ] | [ɡ] | [ɡʷ] | |||||
| 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 aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
[pʼ] | [tʼ] | [tʃʼ] | [kʼ] | [kʷʼ] | |||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators 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 , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
voiceless Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
[ʃ] | [xʷ] | [ħ] | ||||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
(v) | [ʒ] | [ʕ] | |||||
| 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 aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
[sʼ] | [xʼ] | [xʷʼ] | |||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
[j] | |||||||
| Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet... |
||||||||
Vowel phonemes
The sounds are shown using the same system for representing the sounds as in the rest of the article. When the IPAInternational 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.
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
[ɨ] | ||
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
[ɐ] | ||
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
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/, ('he brought forth'); /kʼɐrɐbɐ/, ('he came closer'). All the consonants, with the exception of the pharyngealPharyngeal 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 IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...
and glottal
Glottal consonant
Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
, can be geminated.
Allophones
The velarVelar 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 velum)....
consonants /k/ and /kʼ/ 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. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
. 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 articulators 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 , the final consonant of Bach; or...
. /kʼ/ is pronounced as a fricative, or sometimes as an affricate
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
.
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 uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
place of articulation (although it is represented in this article as [xʼ]). All of these possible realizations - velar ejective fricative
Velar ejective fricative
The velar ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .-Features:Features of the velar ejective fricative:-Occurrence:...
, uvular ejective fricative
Uvular ejective fricative
The uvular ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .-Features:Features of the uvular ejective fricative:-Occurrence:...
, velar ejective affricate
Velar ejective affricate
The velar ejective affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .-Features:Features of the velar ejective affricate:-Occurrence:...
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 phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s of /k/ and /kʼ/.
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 /məbkaj/ ('to cry') and /bɐxɐjɐ/ ('he cried'), and for the verb meaning 'steal', which has the triconsonantal root |srkʼ|, there are forms such as /jəsɐrkʼu/ ('they steal') and /jəsɐrrəxʼ/ ('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, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel....
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.
Typical grammatical features
Grammatically, Tigrinya is a typical Ethiopian Semitic (ES) languageEthiopian Semitic languages
Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
in most ways:
- A Tigrinya nounNounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open 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 .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
is treated as either masculine or feminineGrammatical genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
. However, most inanimate nouns do not have a fixed gender. - Tigrinya nouns have pluralGrammatical numberIn 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 pronounPersonal pronounPersonal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
s and subject agreementAgreement (linguistics)In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
s on verbVerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, gender is distinguished in second personGrammatical personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic 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.)'. - PossessivePossession (linguistics)Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses 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 rootsRoot (linguistics)The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
, most consisting of three consonantsTriliteralThe roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals"...
: {sbr} 'break', säbärä 'he broke', 'he breaks', 'to break'. - Within the tenseGrammatical tenseA tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
system there is a basic distinction between the perfective form, conjugatedGrammatical conjugationIn linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
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 jussiveJussive moodThe jussive is a grammatical mood of verbs for issuing orders, commanding, or exhorting . English verbs are not marked for this mood...
/imperativeImperative moodThe imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
form, similar to the imperfective: 'let them break'. - Through the addition of derivationalDerivation (linguistics)In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. 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, frequentativeFrequentativeIn 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...
, reciprocalReciprocal (grammar)A reciprocal is a linguistic structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between two noun phrases. In a reciprocal construction, each of the participants 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 objectObject (grammar)An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
and prepositionalAdpositionPrepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles...
pronoun suffixes: fälät'ä-nni 'he knew me', fälät'ä-lläy 'he knew for me'. - NegationNegationIn logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified...
is expressed through the prefix ay- and, in independent clauseIndependent clauseAn independent clause is a clause that can stand by itself, also known as a simple sentence. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate; it makes sense by itself....
s, the suffix -n: ay-fälät'ä-n 'he didn't know'. - The copula and the verb of existence in the present are irregularIrregular verbIn contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur. The idea of an irregular verb is important in second language acquisition, where the verb paradigms of a foreign language are learned...
: ’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 clauseRelative clauseA relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the 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 accusativeAccusative caseThe 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 definiteDefinitenessIn grammatical theory, 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 objectsObject (grammar)An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
. In Tigrinya this is the prefix . For example, 'Hagos met Almaz'. - As in other modern ES languages, the default word orderWord orderIn linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
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–mood system, with many nuances achieved using combinations of the three basic aspectual forms (perfect, imperfect, gerundive) and various auxiliary verbs including the copula ( ǝyyu, 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 applicativeApplicative voiceThe applicative voice is a grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the object argument, and indicates the oblique role within the meaning of the verb. When the applicative voice is applied to a verb, its valency may be increased by one...
suffixes, used both for the dativeDative caseThe dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
and benefactiveBenefactive caseThe benefactive case is a grammatical case used where English would use "for", "for the benefit of", or "intended for", e.g...
and for locativeLocative caseLocative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
and adversative senses: '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 scriptGe'ez alphabet
Ge'ez , also called Ethiopic, is a script used as an abugida for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an abjad used to write Ge'ez, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church...
, originally developed for the Ge'ez language
Ge'ez language
Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
, now used only in liturgical and classical texts. Ge'ez and its script are also called Ethiopic. The Ge'ez script is an abugida
Abugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
: 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....
.
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 /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 'he approached', 'he was near' are both written . Since such minimal pairs are very rare, this presents no problem to readers of the language.
| ä | u | i | a | e | o | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| h | |||||||
| l | |||||||
| m | |||||||
| s | |||||||
| r | |||||||
| s | |||||||
| š | |||||||
| k' | |||||||
| kw' | |||||||
| x' | |||||||
| xw' | |||||||
| b | |||||||
| v | |||||||
| t | |||||||
| č | |||||||
| h | |||||||
| n | |||||||
| ñ | |||||||
| ’ | |||||||
| k | |||||||
| kw | |||||||
| x | |||||||
| xw | |||||||
| w | |||||||
| ‘ | |||||||
| z | |||||||
| ž | |||||||
| y | |||||||
| d | |||||||
| g | |||||||
| gw | |||||||
| t' | |||||||
| č' | |||||||
| p' | |||||||
| s' | |||||||
| s' | |||||||
| f | |||||||
| p |
External links
- Ethnologue entry for Tigrinya
- Tigrinya classes for children of Tigrinya-speaking immigrants in Sweden, including teaching materials.
- Tigrigna online, 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]).
- 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.
- Tigrina Learning and Playing Game Board - : It provides for playful learning of the Ge'ez script and all languages which are written with it.http://www.erikids.net