Tigre (ትግረ)

Tigre is a member of the Ethiopic branch of South Semitic languages. It is spoken by about 800,000 people in Eritrea, particularly in western parts of that country, and also in neighbouring areas of Sudan, where the language is known as Xasa (ኻሳ). It is thought to have descended from Ge'ez, the liturgical language used in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Muslim Tigre people tend to write their language with the Arabic script, while Christian Tigres and the Eritrean government use a version of the Ge'ez / Ethiopic alphabet, which was devised for a Tigre translation of the New Testament published in 1902.

The Ge'ez alphabet for Tigre

Arabic script for Tigre

Download alphabet charts for Tigre (Excel)

Corrections and improvements provided by Michael Peter Füstumum

Sample video in Tigre

Information about Tigre | Numbers

Links

Information about the Tigre language and people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigre_language
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tig
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigre_people

Online Tigre lessons
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~gasmerom/Eritrean_languages/tigre/

Semitic languages

Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic (Algerian), Arabic (Bedawi), Arabic (Chadian), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Gulf), Arabic (Hassaniya), Arabic (Hejazi), Arabic (Lebanese), Arabic (Modern Standard), Arabic (Moroccan), Arabic (Najdi), Arabic (Syrian), Aramaic, Argobba, Assyrian / Neo-Assyrian, Canaanite, Chaha, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Ge'ez, Hadhramautic, Harari, Hebrew, Himyaritic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Maltese, Mandaic, Nabataean, Neo-Mandaic, Phoenician, Punic, Qatabanic, Sabaean, Sabaic, Silt'e, Syriac, Tigre, Tigrinya, Turoyo, Ugaritic, Western Neo-Aramaic

Languages written with the Ethiopic (Ge'ez) script

Aari, Amharic, Argobba, Awngi, Bench, Blin, Chaha, Dizin, Ge'ez, Gumuz, Hamer(-Banna), Harari, Inor, Sidama, Silt'e, Tigre, Tigrinya, Xamtanga

Page last modified: 01.05.21

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