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Tigrinya (Ge'ez ትግርኛ təgrəña, also spelt Tigrigna) is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigray-Tigrinya people in central Eritrea, where it is one of the main working languages (Eritrea does not have official languages), and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, 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 should not be confused with the related Tigre language, which is spoken in a region in Eritrea to the 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, 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.

Speakers

There is no generally agreed on name for the people who speak Tigrinya. The name of the language, which its speakers as well as others use to refer to it, is derived from the region in Ethiopia where most of its speakers live, Tigray; the suffix means 'language of'. A native of Tigray is referred to in Tigrinya as ' (male), ' (female), (plural). In Eritrea, Tigrinya Muslims are known as Jebertis.

In Ethiopia, Tigrinya is the third most spoken language, after Oromo and Amharic. In Eritrea, Tigrinya is by far the most spoken language. (See Demographics of Eritrea.)

Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically.Leslau, Wolf (1941) Documents Tigrigna (Éthiopien Septentrional): Grammaire et Textes. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck. 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 *, 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 , , and occur as allophones.

Consonants
Bilabial/
Labiodental 		Dental Palato-alveolar/
Palatal 		Velar Labialized velar Pharyngeal Glottal
Stops Voiceless
Voiced
Ejective
Affricates Voiceless
Voiced
Ejective
Fricatives Voiceless
Voiced (v)
Ejective
Nasals
Approximants
Flap/Trill

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.

Vowels
Front Central Back
High
Mid
Low

Gemination

Gemination is significant in Tigrinya. That is, consonant length can distinguish words from one another. Although gemination plays a significant role in verb morphology, it is usually accompanied by other features, and there are few pairs of Tigrinya words that are distinguished only by gemination: ' 'he approached', ' 'he was near'. All consonants except the pharyngeal and glottal consonants can geminate.

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 *). This velar or uvular ejective fricative (or affricate) is a very unusual sound, perhaps unique to Tigrinya.

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 ' (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 ' (they steal) and ይሰርቕ (he steals).

What is especially interesting about these pairs of phones is that they are distinguished in Tigrinya orthography. Because allophones are completely predictable, it is quite unusual for them to be represented with distinct symbols in the written form of a language.

Syllables

A Tigrinya syllable may consist of a consonant-vowel or a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence. When three consonants (or one geminated consonant and one simple consonant) come together within a word, the cluster is broken up with the introduction of an epenthetic vowel //, 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,
  • ከብዲ käbdi 'stomach', ልቢ 'heart'
  • -äy 'my', ከብደይ käbdäy 'my stomach', ልበይ 'my heart'
  • -ka 'your (masc.)', ከብድኻ ' 'your (masc.) stomach', ልብኻ ' 'your (masc.) heart'
  • -n...-n 'and', ከብድን ልብን '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

Typical Ethiopian Semitic grammatical features

Grammatically, Tigrinya is a typical Ethiopian Semitic (ES) language in most ways:
  • A Tigrinya noun is treated as either masculine or feminine. However, most inanimate nouns do not have a fixed gender.
  • Tigrinya nouns have plural, as well as singular, forms, though the plural is not obligatory when the linguistic or pragmatic context makes the number clear. As in Tigre and 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 '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 ' 'good (m.sg.)', ጽብቕቲ ' 'good (f.sg.)', ጽቡቓት 'good (pl.)'
  • Within personal pronouns and subject agreement inflections on verbs, gender is distinguished in second person as well as third. For example, ተዛረብ 'speak! (m.sg.)', ተዛረቢ 'speak (f.sg.)'.
  • linguistics|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 'he breaks', ምስባር '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 '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 '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 'he isn't', ነበረ näbärä 'he existed, he was, there was', ይኸውን 'he will be', ይነብር '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 'who knew'
  • Cleft sentences, with relative clauses normally following the copula, are very common: መን እዩ ዝፈለጠ 'who knew?' (lit. 'who is he who knew?').
  • There is an accusative marker used on definite direct objects. In Tigrinya this is the prefix . For example, ሓጐስ ንኣልማዝ ረኺቡዋ '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.

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 '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 '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 'did you (f.sg.) see my sister?'.
  • The negative circumfix ay- -n may mark nouns, pronouns, and adjectives as well as verbs: ኣይኣነን 'not me', ኣይዓብይን '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 'stay'.
  • Tigrinya has compound prepositions corresponding to the preposition-postposition compounds found in Amharic: ኣብ ልዕሊ ዓራት 'on (top of) the bed', ኣብ ትሕቲ ዓራት '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'.

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.

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 እንታይ, 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 ቀረበ. Since such minimal pairs are very rare, this presents no problem to readers of the language.

Tigrinya writing system
  ä u i a e o
h ሀሁሂሃሄህሆ
l ለሉሊላሌልሎ
ḥ ሐሑሒሓሔሕሖ
m መሙሚማሜምሞ
s ሠሡሢሣሤሥሦ
r ረሩሪራሬርሮ
s ሰሱሲሳሴስሶ
ሸሹሺሻሼሽሾ
k' ቀቁቂቃቄቅቆ
ቈ ቊቋቌቍ
x' ቐቑቒቓቔቕቖ
ቘ ቚቛቜቝ
b በቡቢባቤብቦ
v ቨቩቪቫቬቭቮ
t ተቱቲታቴትቶ
ቸቹቺቻቼችቾ
h ኀኁኂኃኄኅኆ
n ነኑኒናኔንኖ
ñ ኘኙኚኛኜኝኞ
’ አኡኢኣኤእኦ
k ከኩኪካኬክኮ
ኰ ኲኳኴኵ
x ኸኹኺኻኼኽኾ
ዀ ዂዃዄዅ
w ወዉዊዋዌውዎ
‘ ዐዑዒዓዔዕዖ
z ዘዙዚዛዜዝዞ
ዠዡዢዣዤዥዦ
y የዩዪያዬይዮ
d ደዱዲዳዴድዶ
ጀጁጂጃጄጅጆ
g ገጉጊጋጌግጎ
ጐ ጒጓጔጕ
t' ጠጡጢጣጤጥጦ
ጨጩጪጫጬጭጮ
p' ጰጱጲጳጴጵጶ
s' ጸጹጺጻጼጽጾ
s' ፀፁፂፃፄፅፆ
f ፈፉፊፋፌፍፎ
p ፐፑፒፓፔፕፖ

References

Bibliography

  • Amanuel Sahle (1998) . Lawrencevill, NJ, USA: Red Sea Press. ISBN 1-56902-096-5
  • Dan'el Täxlu Räda (1996, Eth. Cal.) .
  • 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) , 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. (1985) A Tigrinya Chrestomathy. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. ISBN 3-515-04314-4
  • Ze'im Girma (1983) . Asmara: Government Printing Press.

External links

Languages of Eritrea | Languages of Ethiopia | South Semitic languages

Tigrigneg | Тигриня | Tigrinya | Tigrinya | Tigriña | Tigrinya hizkuntza | Tigrinya | 티그리냐어 | Lingua tigrina | טיגריניה | Tigrinya | Língua tigrinya | Tigrajščina | Tigrinja | Tigrinska

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Tigrinya language".

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