Professional Tigrinya translations by the translation agency Fasttranslator

Tigrinya belongs to the Semitic language group, which is a member of the Afroasiatic language family. Today there are approximately ten million native speakers of Tigrinya. Tigrinya is the official or working language of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Tigray, which is a region in the highlands of Ethiopia. Our translation agency has years of experience in quickly and routinely producing high quality translations, even into an exotic language such as this. Are you in need of a translation into or from Tigrinya? Then contact us by phone or by email. We offer you assistance with any unanswered questions and a non-binding quote.

A very long history

Tigrinya probably stems from an ancient Ethiopian dialect most likely spoken in the old center of the holy city Axum. During the Italian colonial period, many words and terms from the Italian language were borrowed and adopted into the Tigrinya language. Along with Arabic, Tigrinya is the established official and working language of the aforementioned regions, as well as the native tongue of various ethnic groups and tribes living there. The written language of Tigrinya first began to develop during the days of the Second World War. Up to that point, the language was only passed down orally or by using Arabic script. Only a few documents from the late nineteenth century, mostly translations of the Bible, have been passed down. Our native-speaking translators have been raised speaking Tigrinya and know its cultural and linguistic idiosyncrasies. They translate your documents reliably and with pinpoint accuracy. This is how we can guarantee high quality for our translations every time. Even specialized subject areas are no problem for us. Whether it is tourism or medicine, we always assign the right translator to your project.

The written language of Tigrinya

The Tigrinya alphabet is made up by the so-called Ge’ez script, the writing form of an old Ethiopian, Semitic language closely related to Tigrinya and one other language. Ge'ez has been spoken along with Tigrinya in this geographical area since the late antiquity and has survived to this day. Today, Ge'ez is the official language of the Orthodox Church in this region and the common language of the Ethiopian Jews. Ge'ez script is made up purely of symbols. Although it is a Semitic script, it is written from left to right. In this script, the symbols only denote consonants, while the subsequent vowels are written above or below the consonant or to its right or left. There are also numerous diacritical marks in Ge’ez script. The strong influence of ancient Indian scripts on Ge’ez writing remains apparent even today. Only after the Second World War was the Ge'ez script standardized and modernized. Today, it is the writing form for various different languages: Tigrinya, Ge'ez, Amharic, Harari, Tigre and other languages and dialects spoken in that region. The alphabet of the Ge'ez language, which forms the basis of the written language of Tigrinya, consists of symbols and diacritical marks. These probably developed in their original forms by the third century. Do you have texts written in Tigrinya that you need to have translated into English or into another one of the other 150 languages we offer, or maybe the other way around? We will gladly do that for you! Contact us by phone or by email.