There are nine languages in Eritrea. Tigrigna (50%) and Arabic
are the working languages. The other languages are Tigre (40%),
Afar (4%), Saho (3%), Bega (Beja), Bilen, Nara and Kunama. English
and Italian are also widely understood.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands
of Italian peasants settled in Eritrea. Some 70.000 remained in
Eritrea at the end of the Italian colonial rule in 1941. In the
1970s, when Eritrea was under Ethiopian occupation, only a few
hundred remained. Many older Asmarinos still converse in Italian.
English is now the language of instruction in secudary schools
and is fast becoming the foreign language of choice.
Tigrinya, spoken by at least half the population, has its own
script derived from the ancient language Ge ’ez, now only used
in the Orthodox Church. The script has over 200 characters, each
representing a different sound (see below). While our alphabet
states a, b, c and so on, Tigrinya has its own character for ba,
be, bi, bo and so on, which are mutants of the basic character.
Tigrinya is by any standards a very difficult language to learn.
