Tigre language

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For other uses please see Tigre (disambiguation)

Tigre (Ge'ez ትግረ tigre or ትግሬ tigrē; sometimes written as Tigré, also known as Xasa in Sudan; Arabic ألخاصية ḫāṣiyah) is a Semitic language that closely resembles the Ge'ez in its purest form and it is also closely related to Tigrinya. It is spoken by approximately one million people in Eritrea, with a few speakers in Sudan. Tigre is also the name for the people. The Tigre language, speakers and area should not be confused with the Tigrinya people who also live in Eritrea and who speak Tigrinya, nor with the Ethiopian Tigray Region.

Since the 19th century, Tigre has been written using the Ge'ez alphabet. This mode of writing was introduced by Swedish missionaries for translation of the New Testament (1902). This was continued by the translator of the Tigre Bible (1988). However, as Ge'ez is the language of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church, many Tigre Muslims use the Arabic alphabet.

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Consonant and vowel phonemes

Tigre has preserved the two pharyngeal consonants which were part of the ancient Ge'ez language. Tigre also has the set of seven vowels, with one key difference: the distinction between the two vowels which are phonetically close to [ɐ] (traditionally the "first order vowel" and ä in the most common transcription system) and [a] in languages such as Tigrinya and Amharic is in Tigre more a matter of length than of quality: [a] vs. [aː].

The charts below show the phonemes of Tigre. For the representation of Tigre 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. When the IPA symbol is different, it is indicated in brackets in the charts. For the long vowel aː, the symbol "ā" is used, in agreement with Raz's book.^[1] The consonants p, p' and x appear in parentheses because they occur only in a small number of loanwords.

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

[edit] Gemination

Gemination is significant in Tigre--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 Tigre words that are distinguished only by gemination: Zakkarko 'I praised', šakarko 'I got drunk'.

All consonants except the pharyngeal and glottal consonants and w and y can geminate.

[edit] See also

• Tigre people

[edit] External links

• Online Tigre language tutorial
• Ethnologue on Tigre
• LanguageHat article about the difficulties of written Tigre
• Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea

[edit] Bibliography

• Beaton, A.C. & A. Paul (1954). A grammar and vocabulary of the Tigre language (as spoken by the Beni Amer). Khartoum: Publications Bureau.
• Elias, David L. (2005). Tigre of Habab: Short Grammar and Texts from the Rigbat People. Ph.D dissertation. Harvard University.
• Leslau, Wolf. (1945) Short Grammar of Tigré. Publications of the American Oriental Society, Offprint Series, No. 18. New Haven: American Oriental Society.
• Leslau, Wolf. (1945), "The Verb in Tigré", in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 65/1, pp. 1-26.
• Leslau, Wolf. (1945), "Grammatical Sketches in Tigré (North Ethiopic): Dialect of Mensa", in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 65/3, pp. 164-203.
• Leslau, Wolf. (1948), "Supplementary observations on Tigré grammar", in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 68/3, pp. 127-139.
• Littmann, E. (1897), "Die Pronomina in Tigré", in: Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 12, pp. 188-230, 291-316.
• Littmann, Enno. (1898), "Das Verbum der Tigre-Sprache", in: Zeitschrift für Assyrologie 13, pp. 133-178; 14, pp. 1-102.
• Littmann, Enno. (1910-15). Publications of the Princeton expedition to Abyssinia, 4 vols. in 4, Leyden.
• Littmann, Enno. and Höfner, Maria. (1962) Wörterbuch der Tigrē-Sprache: Tigrē-Deutsch-Englisch. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
• Nakano, Aki'o & Yoichi Tsuge (1982). A Vocabulary of Beni Amer Dialect of Tigre. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.
• Palmer, F.R. (1956). "'Openness' in Tigre: a problem in prosodic statement", in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 18/3, pp. 561-577.
• Palmer, F.R. (1961). "Relative clauses in Tigre", in: Word 17/1, pp. 23-33.
• Palmer, F.R. (1962). The morphology of the Tigre noun. London: Oxford University Press.
• Raz, Shlomo. (1980). "Tigre syntax and Semitic Ethiopian", in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43/2, pp. 235-250.
• Raz, Shlomo. (1980). "The morphology of the Tigre verb (Mansaʿ dialect)", in: Journal of Semitic Studies 25/1, pp. 66-84; 25/2, pp. 205-238.
• ^ Raz, Shlomo. (1983). Tigre grammar and texts. Malibu, California, USA: Undena Publications.
• Sundström, R. (1914). "Some Tigre texts", in: Le Monde Orientale 8, pp. 1-15.