Tigre language
Tigre (ትግረ, also known as Tigré ትግሬ; tigrē, or by its Eritrean autonym Tigrayit ትግራይት) is an Ethiopian Semitic language spoken in the Horn of Africa, primarily by the Tigre people of Eritrea.[3] 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.[2] As of 1997, Tigre was spoken by approximately 800,000 Tigre people in Eritrea.[4] 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.[2]
Not to be confused with Tigrinya language.Tigre
890,000 (2022)[2]
Mansa (Mensa), Habab, Beni-Amir, Semhar, Algeden, Senhit (Ad-Tekleis, Ad-Temariam, Bet-Juk, Marya Kayah)
Tigre alphabet (Geʽez script), Arabic script
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[edit]
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%.[2]
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: