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Tigrinya
Last update: Saturday 11th of February 2012
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| Tigrinya ትግርኛ tigriññā | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation: | IPA: /tɨg.rɨ.ɲa/ | |
| Spoken in: | Eritrea, Ethiopia | |
| Region: | Eritrea, Ethiopia, especially in Tigray | |
| Total speakers: | 6.7 million | |
| Language family: | Afro-Asiatic Semitic South Semitic Ethiopic North Ethiopic Tigrinya | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | Ethiopia and Eritrea | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ti | |
| ISO 639-2: | tir | |
| ISO 639-3: | tir | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
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 tribe 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.
- 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.