Abstract

Tigrinya (self-name tɨgrɨɲɲa or k’ʷank’ʷa ħabəʃa) is an Ethio-Semitic language, classified in Hetzron (1972: 7) as belonging, together with Geez and Tigre, to the North Ethio-Semitic group. As argued in Bulakh and Kogan (2010), however, North Ethio-Semitic is not a genetic group: its main features (preservation of bare pcl in the main clause, productive “broken” plural, etc.) are retentions from the common Ethio-Semitic stock (but cf. §7 on some lexical innovations), and the three languages, left after splitting-off of Proto-South-Ethio-Semitic from Ethio-Semitic, must have developed independently, although in close contact. For a map of the area of speakers, see Map 8.1.