Talk:Tigre language

speakers

This article needs to tell what the name is of the people who speak Tigre.

Gringo300 05:18, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The speakers are called by their language "tigre". Mesfin

Relationship with Ge'ez

Please could someone confirm whether Tigre is generally accepted to be descended from Ge'ez rather than a sister? This isn't shown in the structure at Ethiopian Semitic languages Gailtb 01:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Speakers

Tigre language and Tigre Province (of Ethiopia) are different.

Tigre speakers belong to diverse tribes - of which the two houses of Mensa are one. Another are the Beni-Amer. The dialects of these two are distinct.

User: Wad-add 27/07/2007

I just added a bit to the opening paragraph. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Sweedish Geez?!

This artcle claims geez script was invented by Sweedish Missionaries,This contradicts the Geez article,not to mention it rediculous --24.193.49.124 (talk) 20:38, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The way I read it, it implies that there was no written system for the Tigre language until the 19th century, when Swedish Missionaries took the existing Ge'ez system and adapted it for Tigre. Evidently, this should be clarified (and attributed). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:08, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Sudan?

Eritrea doesn't share a border with Sudan. Don't you mean Ethiopia?

All the best 157.157.230.175 (talk) 17:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. 157.157.230.175 (talk) 17:58, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Tigre language and Tigray province of Ethiopia

I think this article is incorrect in saying that the Tigre language is not spoken in Ethiopia. What is the language spoken in Tigray? I am not trying to start any Ethiopia vs. Eritrea arguments, just clarify the issues. Pete unseth (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

What vowel is intended in the plural of "king"

For the word "king, the plural form has a vowel symbol that is unexplained.

• negus - king; negüs - kings;

Is the second vowel a typo? If not, this should be explained.Pete unseth (talk) 16:54, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Transliterating Tigre words with "ch"

I find some Tigre words spelled with <c> and others with <ch>. I think the <ch> is a mistake. Here are the singular and plural fors of 'star'. I think the <ch> forms should be spelled <c>. Am I correct? ኮኮብ cochöb - star;ከዋክብ cauachib - stars Pete unseth (talk) 17:13, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

The number seems to be changing with no explanation and no reference to a source. LegacyVisual (talk) 23:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@LegacyVisual: It was always sourced. I've updated it nonetheless. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Deletion proposal for Tig (Tigrinya language)

I have proposed the deletion of the page Tig (Tigrinya language). This page aims to clarify the distinctions between Tigrinya, Tigre, Tigrai, & numerous derived terms. You can find the deletion discussion page here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tig (Tigrinya language). Very briefly, I do not oppose some clarification page as such, but rather oppose the invented term tig. I strongly encourage those who are following this page & who have an opinion on the matter to vote or comment at the deletion discussion—whether or not they agree with me. Pathawi (talk) 17:26, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Autonyms

Three autonyms are listed at the top of this article: ትግረ, ትግሬ, ትግራይት. Is there any difference between them?

ትግራይት is claimed to be the "Eritrean autonym", but there's no source for this claim. For what it's worth, it's the only name listed as the autonym on Ethnologue, although it doesn't necessarily mean very much.

There's the website https://www.speaktigre.com/ , which looks like a fairly professionally made library of books and articles about the language. It uses the name "ትግሬ" in its own title in the Ethiopic script. In addition, I found the same spelling in two dictionaries that appear on that website—the German one by Enno Littmann and Maria Höffner and the French one by Werner Munzinger. I couldn't find ትግረ or ትግራይት in either of them. However, I should mention that those dictionaries are a bit old, and even though I am able to read the Ethiopic alphabet, I don't know the Tigre language at all, so it's possible that I missed something.

Omniglot lists ትግረ as the main autonym, but that site, despite being cool in a bunch of ways, is not really the most reliable source.

Does anyone have other good and up-to-date sources about it, such as modern dictionaries or grammar books? And are there perhaps websites in it? This language doesn't seem to have a large online presence

If there is nothing else, then my inclination would be to list "ትግሬ" as the primary autonym because the https://www.speaktigre.com/ looks quite good, and I don't have anything else. But if anyone has other suggestions, please bring it up. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:14, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Based on how we evaluate sources on Wikipedia, Ethnologue is ranked higher than the website you list, as it is more scholarly. That doesn't imply that Ethnologue always has it right, but for us to decide that it is wrong, we need more than a private language-learning site to overrule it. LandLing 22:27, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but currently, the Wikipedia article doesn't list the name ትግራይት from Ethnologue as the primary name, but as the "Eritrean" name, and there is no reference for that at all. If we prefer Ethnologue, we should probably list that as the main thing.

And more importantly, that language-learning website is probably not a good source by itself, but, as I mentioned, the two dictionaries on it list ትግሬ as the name, and not ትግረ or ትግራይት, and those dictionaries are definitely scholarly (albeit old). When I wrote that "the https://www.speaktigre.com/ [site] looks quite good", I mostly referred to the dictionaries.

I also managed to find a Russian scholarly book about Ethiopic Semitic languages, which is cited in the Russian Wikipedia (I know Russian perfectly): Булах М.С. Тигре язык // Языки мира: Семитские языки. Эфиосемитские языки / РАН. Институт языкознания. Ред. колл.: М.С. Булах, Л.Е. Коган, О.И. Романова. ― М.: Academia, 2013. — c. 216. It has an extensive article about Tigre. The article in the book only uses transliteration, but towards the end of the book, there is a table of the Ethiopic script. There are different systems to Romanize the Ethiopic script, but according to the table in this book, ሬ is "re" and ረ is "ra", and the autonym of the language is transliterated as "təgré", which maps to ትግሬ.

That Russian book is also a much better reference for the usage of the alternate autonym used by Tigre speakers in Sudan. However, the book gives it as "hāsā", and according to the transliteration table, in the Ethiopic script it would be written as "ሃሳ" and not "ኻሳ", as the Wikipedia article says now. The current source for this piece of information is Omniglot, but this information doesn't appear there at all, so it can be safely removed.

Summary till now:

• We could find ትግራይት only in Ethnologue.
• We couldn't find ትግረ in any sources at all.
• We could find "ትግሬ" or a transliterated equivalent in several sources.

Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:45, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

As long as you cite the sources you have, particularly Littmann and Munzinger, I don't see a problem. But you should also leave Tigrayit in the article, besides Tigre, as there is a reliable source for that. BTW, I don't even understand what the term "Eritrean autonym" expresses, as the language is mostly spoken in Eritrea, and therefore this should be just the autonym without any qualification. As Ethnologue does not make that claim, we should just delete the qualifier "Eritrean" from the article. LandLing 13:07, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Great, I agree with everything. Nice to reach consensus! Thanks! Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:36, 31 August 2024 (UTC)