Tigre language explained

Tigre
Nativename:Tigre: ትግረ (Tigre) / Tigre: ትግራይት (Tigrayit)
Tigre: ኻሳ (Xasa)[1]
States:Eritrea, Sudan
Region:Anseba, Gash-Barka, Northern Red Sea, Red Sea State
Ethnicity:Tigre
Date:2022
Ref:e27
Familycolor:Afro-Asiatic
Fam2:Semitic
Fam3:West Semitic
Fam4:South Semitic
Fam5:Ethiopic
Fam6:North
Script:Tigre alphabet (Geʽez script), Arabic script
Minority:
Dialects:Mansa (Mensa), Habab, Beni-Amir, Semhar, Algeden, Senhit (Ad-Tekleis, Ad-Temariam, Bet-Juk, Marya Kayah)
Iso2:tig
Iso3:tig
Glotto:tigr1270
Glottorefname:Tigre
Notice:IPA

Tigre (Tigre: ትግረ, also known as Tigré Tigre: ትግሬ;, or by its Eritrean autonym Tigrayit Tigre: ትግራይት) is an Ethiopian Semitic language spoken in the Horn of Africa, primarily by the Tigre people of Eritrea.[2] Along with Tigrinya, it is believed to be the most closely related living language to Ge'ez, which is still in use as the liturgical language of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Tigre has a lexical similarity of 71% with Ge’ez and of 64% with Tigrinya. As of 1997, Tigre was spoken by approximately 800,000 Tigre people in Eritrea.[3] The Tigre mainly inhabit western Eritrea, though they also reside in the northern highlands of Eritrea and its extension into the adjacent parts of Sudan, as well as Eritrea's Red Sea coast north of Zula. There is a small number of Tigre speakers in Sudan, as well as communities of speakers found in the diaspora.

The Tigre people are not to be confused with their neighbors to the south, the Tigrinya people of Eritrea and the Tigrayans of Ethiopia, who speak Tigrinya. Tigrinya is also derived from the parent Geʽez tongue, but is quite distinct from Tigre despite the similarity in name.

Dialects

There are several dialects of Tigre, some of them are; Mansa’ (Mensa), Habab, Barka, Semhar, Algeden, Senhit (Ad-Tekleis, Ad-Temariam, Bet-Juk, Marya Kayah) and Dahalik, which is spoken in the Dahlak Archipelago. Intelligibility between the dialects is above 91% (except Dahalik), where intelligibility between Dahalik and the other dialects is between 24% and 51%.

Numeral

Cardinal Numbers

Ordinal Numbers

Ordinal numbers have both feminine and masculine form. The gender-neutral ordinal numbers are described in the section below. To describe the masculine form –“ay” is added and respective -ayt to describe the feminine form.

Phonology

Tigre has preserved the two pharyngeal consonants of Ge'ez. The Ge'ez vowel inventory has almost been preserved except that the two vowels which are phonetically close to pronounced as /[ɐ]/ and [a] seem to have evolved into a pair of phonemes which have the same quality (the same articulation) but differ in length; [a] vs. pronounced as /[aː]/. The original phonemic distinction according to quality survives in Tigrinya. The vowel pronounced as /[ɐ]/, traditionally named "first order vowel", is most commonly transcribed ä in Semitic linguistics.

The phonemes of Tigre are displayed below in both International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols (indicated by the IPA brackets) and the symbols common (though not universal) among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages. For the long vowel pronounced as //aː//, the symbol 'ā' is used per Raz (1983). Three consonants, /p, p', x/, occur only in a small number of loanwords, hence they are written in parentheses.

As in other Ethiopian Semitic languages, the phonemic status of pronounced as //ə// is questionable; it may be possible to treat it as an epenthetic vowel that is introduced to break up consonant clusters.

!Labial!Dental!Palatal!Velar!Pharyngeal!Glottal
Nasalpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Stop(pronounced as /ink/)pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
(pronounced as /ink/)pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Fricativepronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ (pronounced as /ink/)pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
pronounced as /ink/
Approximantpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Rhoticpronounced as /ink/
Vowels
FrontCentralBack
Closepronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Midpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Openpronounced as /ink/, pronounced as /ink/

Consonant length

Consonant length is phonemic in Tigre (that is, a pair of words can be distinct by consonant length alone), although there are few such minimal pairs. Some consonants do not occur long; these include the pharyngeal consonants, the glottal consonants, pronounced as //w//, and pronounced as //j//. In this language, long consonants arise almost solely by gemination as a morphological process; there are few, if any, long consonants in word roots. Gemination is especially prominent in verb morphology.

Grammar

These notes use the spelling adopted by Camperio (1936 – see bibliography) which seems to approximate to Italian rules.

Nouns are of two genders, masculine and feminine.

As we might expect from a Semitic language, specifically feminine forms, where they exist, are often formed of an element with t:

In a similar way, sound-changes can also mark the difference between singular and plural:

Personal pronouns distinguish "you, masculine" and "you, feminine" in both singular and plural:

The possessive pronouns appear (a) suffixed to the noun, (b) as separate words:

The verb "to be":

The verb "to be", past tense:

The verb "to have":

and so on, with the last word in each case:

The verb "to have": past tense, using a feminine noun as an example:

and so on, with the last word in each case:

Writing system

Since around 1889, the Ge'ez script (Ethiopic script) has been used to write the Tigre language. Tigre speakers formerly used Arabic more widely as a lingua franca.[4] The Bible has been translated into the Tigre language.[5]

Ge'ez script

Ge'ez script is an abugida, with each character representing a consonant+vowel combination. Ge'ez and its script are also called Ethiopic. The script has been modified slightly to write Tigre.

Tigre Ge'ez Script
 äuiaeəowiwawe
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 äuiaeəowiwawe

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:[6]

Basic sentences:
!Tigre text!Translation
Tigre: ሐየት እት ልርእው፣ እብ አሰሩ ሐዙውWhen they see a lion, they seek it through its tracks.
Tigre: ህኩይ ድራሩ ንኩይLazy's dinner is less
Tigre: ህግየ ፍ’ደት ምን ገብእ። አዚም ደሀብ ቱWhen speaking is an obligation, silence is golden
Tigre: ምህሮ ኖርቱ ወቅዌት ጽልመት፣Knowledge is brightness and ignorance darkness.

Other samples:

!Tigre text
Tigre: ሐል ክም እም ኢትገብእ ወጸሓይ ወርሕ ክም አምዕል
Tigre: ለኢልትሐሜ ኢልትሐመድ፣
Tigre: ለቤለ ለአሰምዕ ወለዘብጠ ለአደምዕ፣
Tigre: ሐሊብ መ ውላዱ ሔሰዩ፣
Tigre: ሐምቅ ሐምቁ ምን ረክብ ዜነት ለአፈግር፣
Tigre: ምስል ብርድ አከይ ፍርድ

See also

External links

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Tigre alphabet and pronunciation. Omniglot. 16 June 2017.
  2. News: Tigre language. Bratannica Encyclopaedia .
  3. Web site: Languages of Eritrea. Ethnologue. 1 November 2023.
  4. Web site: Tigré. Ethnologue. 30 October 2017.
  5. Senai W. Andemariam. 2012. The Story of the Translation of the Bible into Tǝgre. Ityopis 2:62–88. Web access
  6. Web site: B. Abraham . Dessale . 2016-12-02 . Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ articles translated into Tigre language . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230324005140/https://www.asmarino.com/tig/doc-archive/4836-universal-declaration-of-human-rights-articles-translated-into-tigre-language . 2023-03-24 . 2023-10-22 . Asmarino.