Tigrinya nouns have plural, as well as singular, forms, though the plural is not obligatory when the linguistic or pragmatic context makes the number clear. As in Tigre and Geʼez (as well as Arabic), noun plurals may be formed through internal changes ("broken" plural) as well as through the addition of suffixes. For example, ፈረስ färäs 'horse', ኣፍራሰ ʼafras 'horses'. Negation is expressed through the prefix ay- and, in independent clauses, the suffix -n: ኣይፈለጠን ʼay-fäläṭä-n 'he didn't know'. Since these two sounds are completely conditioned by their environments, they can be considered allophones of /k/ and /kʼ/. This is especially clear from verb roots in which one consonant is realized as one or the other allophone depending on what precedes it. For example, for the verb meaning cry, which has the triconsonantal root |bky|, there are forms such as ምብካይ /məbkaj/ ('to cry') and በኸየ /bɐxɐjɐ/ ('he cried'), and for the verb meaning 'steal', which has the triconsonantal root | srkʼ|, there are forms such as ይሰርቁ /jəsɐrkʼu/ ('they steal') and ይሰርቕ /jəsɐrrəxʼ/ ('he steals'). Gemination, the doubling of a consonantal sound, is meaningful in Tigrinya, i.e. it affects the meaning of words. While gemination plays an important role in the morphology of the Tigrinya verb, it is normally accompanied by other marks. But there is a small number of pairs of words which are only differentiable from each other by gemination, e.g. /kʼɐrrɐbɐ/, ('he brought forth'); /kʼɐrɐbɐ/, ('he came closer'). All the consonants, with the exception of the pharyngeal and glottal, can be geminated. [9] Allophones [ edit ] Täxästä Täxlä et al. (1989, Eth. Cal.) Mäzgäbä Qalat Təgrəñña bə-Təgrəñña. Addis Ababa: Nəgd matämiya dərəǧǧət.

Catholics Old testaments include the 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther, and the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon which are included in Daniel. The negative circumfix ʼay- -n may mark nouns, pronouns, and adjectives as well as verbs: ኣይኣነን ʼay-ʼanä-n 'not me', ኣይዓብይን ʼayʽabǝy-ǝn 'not big' Tigrinya has compound prepositions corresponding to the preposition–postposition compounds found in Amharic: ኣብ ልዕሊ ዓራት ʼab lǝʽliʽarat 'on (top of) the bed', ኣብ ትሕቲ ዓራት ʼab tǝḥtiʽarat 'under the bed' Kane, Thomas L. (2000) Tigrinya-English Dictionary (2 vols). Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press. ISBN 1-881265-68-4

Possessive adjectives take the form of noun suffixes: ገዛ gäza 'house', ገዛይ gäza-y 'my house', ገዛኺ gäza-ḵi 'your (f.sg.) house'.

Praetorius, F. (1871) Grammatik der Tigriñasprache in Abessinien. Halle. ISBN 3-487-05191-5 (1974 reprint) For Tigrinya speaking Ethiopians and Eritreans all over the world, this is best Tigrinya Catholic Bible app There is a definite article, related (as in English) to the demonstrative adjective meaning 'that': እታ ጓል ʼǝta gʷal 'the girl'. Tigrinya is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea (see Demographics of Eritrea), and the fourth most spoken language in Ethiopia after Amharic, Oromo, and Somali. It is also spoken by large immigrant communities around the world, in countries including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. In Australia, Tigrinya is one of the languages broadcast on public radio via the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service. [6]This article contains Ethiopic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead of Ethiopic characters. Tigrinya notices at an Eritrean Orthodox Church, Schiebroek, Rotterdam For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope" ( Jeremiah 29:11) ~ Tigrigna Bible Team For second-person pronouns, there is a separate vocative form, used to get a person's attention: ንስኻ nǝssǝḵa 'you (m.sg.)', ኣታ ʼatta 'you! (m.sg.)'. In Eritrea, during British administration, the Ministry of Information put out a weekly newspaper in Tigrinya that cost 5 cents and sold 5,000 copies weekly. At the time, it was reported to be the first of its kind. [5]

Ministry of Information (1944) The First to be Freed—The record of British military administration in Eritrea and Somalia, 1941–1943. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. There is an accusative marker used on definite direct objects. In Tigrinya this is the prefix nǝ-. For example, ሓጐስ ንኣልማዝ ረኺቡዋ ḥagʷäs nǝ’almaz räḵibuwwa 'Hagos met Almaz'. Within the tense system there is a basic distinction between the perfective form, conjugated with suffixes and denoting the past, and the imperfective form, conjugated with prefixes and in some cases suffixes, and denoting the present or future: ሰበሩ säbär-u 'they broke', ይሰብሩ yǝ-säbr-u 'they break'. Holy Bible in Tigrigna comes with all 66 books of old and new testament. Offered with essential features, utilizing the power of android device for Tigrigna speaking community. There is no general name for the people who speak Tigrinya. In Eritrea, Tigrinya speakers are officially known as the Bəher-Təgrəñña ("nation of Tigrinya speakers") or Tigrinya people. In Ethiopia, a Tigrayan, that is a native of Tigray, who also speaks the Tigrinya language, is referred to in Tigrinya as təgraway (male), təgrawäyti (female), tägaru (plural). Bəher roughly means "nation" in the ethnic sense of the word in Tigrinya, Tigre, Amharic and Ge'ez. The Jeberti in Eritrea also speak Tigrinya.Tigrinya (along with Arabic) was one of Eritrea's official languages during its short-lived federation with Ethiopia; in 1958 it was replaced by the Southern Ethiopic language Amharic prior to its annexation. Upon Eritrea's independence in 1991, Tigrinya retained the status of working language in the country, the only state in the world, until changes were made in Ethiopia in 2020, to recognize Tigrinya on a national level. The copula and the verb of existence in the present are irregular: ኣሎ ʼallo 'there is, he exists', እዩ ʼǝyyu 'he is', የለን or የልቦን yällän or yälbon 'there isn't, he doesn't exist', ኣይኰነን ʼaykʷänän 'he isn't', ነበረ näbärä 'he existed, he was, there was', ይኸውን yǝ-ḵäwwǝn 'he will be', ይነብር yǝ-näbbǝr 'he will exist, there will be'. Tigrinya has a fairly typical set of phonemes for an Ethiopian Semitic language. That is, there is a set of ejective consonants and the usual seven-vowel system. Unlike many of the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has preserved the two pharyngeal consonants which were apparently part of the ancient Geʽez language and which, along with [x'], voiceless velar ejective fricative or voiceless uvular ejective fricative, make it easy to distinguish spoken Tigrinya from related languages such as Amharic, though not from Tigre, which has also maintained the pharyngeal consonants. As in Ge'ez and Amharic, there is also a separate "gerundive" form of the verb, conjugated with suffixes and used to link verbs within a sentence: ገዲፍካ ተዛረብ gädifka täzaräb 'stop (that) and speak (m.sg.)'. What is especially interesting about these pairs of phones is that they are distinguished in Tigrinya orthography. Because allophones are completely predictable, it is quite unusual for them to be represented with distinct symbols in the written form of a language.

Verbs also have a separate jussive/ imperative form, similar to the imperfective: ይስበሩ yǝ-sbär-u 'let them break'. Unlike most Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has only one set of applicative suffixes, used both for the dative and benefactive and for locative and adversative senses: ተቐሚጣሉ täq̱ämmiṭa- llu 'she sat down for him' or 'she sat down on it' or 'she sat down to his detriment'. The gerundive form is used for past tense, as well as for the linking function as in Ge'ez and Amharic: ተዛሪቡ täzaribu '(he) speaking, he spoke'. The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the district of Logosarda, Debub Region in Southern Eritrea, which dates from the 13th century. [ citation needed]Amanuel Sahle (1998) Säwasäsǝw Tǝgrǝñña bǝsäfiḥ. Lawrencevill, NJ, US: Red Sea Press. ISBN 1-56902-096-5 Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically. [7] No dialect appears to be accepted as a standard.