The main languages spoken in

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

are Tigrinya, Tigre, Kunama, Bilen,

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

, Saho, Afar, and Beja. The country's

working language A working language (also procedural language) is a language that is given a unique legal status in a supranational company, society, state or other body or organization as its primary means of communication. It is primarily the language of the dai ...

s are Tigrinya,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, English, and formerly

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

. Tigrinya is the most widely spoken language in the country and had 2,540,000 native speakers out of the total population of 5,254,000 in 2006. The remaining residents primarily speak other languages from the Afroasiatic family,

Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...

languages or

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

languages.

Ethno-linguistic demographics

According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the Neolithic period from the family's proposed

urheimat In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historicall ...

("original homeland") in the

Nile Valley The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river i ...

, or the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

. Other scholars propose that the Afro-Asiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, with its speakers subsequently dispersing from there. Eritrea's population now comprises nine

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

s, most of whom speak languages from the Semitic and

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2 ...

branches of the Afro-Asiatic family. Estimates of numbers of speakers given below are from SIL Ethnologue unless otherwise noted.

Afro-Asiatic languages

The languages spoken in Eritrea are Tigrinya, Tigre, and Dahlik (formerly considered a dialect of Tigre). Together, they are spoken by around 70% of local residents: * Tigrinya, spoken as a first language by the Tigrinya people. As of 2006, there were around 2.54 million speakers. * Tigre, spoken by the Tigre people. As of 2006, there were around 1.05 million speakers. * Dahlik, spoken in the Dahlak Archipelago. Variously regarded as either a divergent dialect of Tigre or a separate language, it was assigned its own

ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...

code in 2013. As of 2012, there were around 2,500 speakers. Other Afro-Asiatic languages belonging to the family's

branch are also spoken in the country. They are spoken by around 10% of residents and include: * Beja (Bedawiyet), spoken by the Hedareb. It is sometimes classified as an independent branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. As of 2006, there were 158,000 speakers in Eritrea. * Saho, spoken by the

Saho people The Saho are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group who are one of the 9 official ethnic groups Eritrea. They speak Saho as a mother tongue. History The Saho were originally a northern extension of the Afar people, Afar who moved along the G ...

. It is sometimes grouped with Afar as Saho-Afar. As of 2006, there were around 191,000 speakers in Eritrea. * Afar, spoken by the

Afar people The Afar (), also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern co ...

, predominantly in Ethiopia and Djibouti. As of 2006, there were fewer than 100,000 speakers in Eritrea. * Blin or Bilen, spoken by the

Bilen people The Bilen (also variously transcribed as Blin, and also formerly known as the Bogos or Northern Agaw) are a Cushitic ethnic group in Eritrea. They are primarily concentrated in central Eritrea, in and around the city of Keren and further sout ...

in the Anseba region and Keren town area. As of 2006, there were around 91,000 speakers.

Nilo-Saharan languages

In addition, languages belonging to the

language family are spoken as a mother tongue by the Kunama and

Nilotic The Nilotic peoples are peoples Indigenous people of Africa, indigenous to South Sudan and the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambela Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uga ...

ethnic minorities that live in the west and southwestern parts of the country. Around 187,000 individuals speak the

Kunama language The Kunama language has been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan languages, Nilo-Saharan language family, though it is distantly related to the other languages, if at all. Kunama is spoken by the Kunama people of the Gash-Barka Region in wester ...

, while around 81,400 people speak the Nara language. As of 2006, this corresponds with around 3.5% and 1.5%, respectively, of total residents.

Foreign languages

is mostly found in the form of

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...

as an educational language taught in primary and secondary schools, but there are native speakers of dialectal variants of Arabic, as follows: *

Sudanese Arabic Sudanese Arabic, also referred to as the Sudanese dialect (, ), Colloquial Sudanese ( ) or locally as Common Sudanese ( ) refers to the various related varieties of Arabic spoken in Sudan as well as parts of Egypt, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Sudanese ...

; spoken by approximately 90% of Arabic speakers of Eritrea, also spoken by

Sudanese Arabs Sudanese Arabs () are the inhabitants of Sudan who identify as Arabs and speak Sudanese Arabic, Arabic as their mother tongue. Sudanese Arabs make up 70% of the population of Sudan, however prior to the independence of South Sudan in 2011, Suda ...

. As of 2006, there were around 100,000 speakers in Eritrea. * Hadhrami Arabic, with about 100,000 speakers as of 2006. * Hijazi Arabic, spoken by the Rashaida. As of 2006, there were around 24,000 speakers. * Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic with about 18,000 speakers as of 2006.

was introduced in the 19th century by the colonial authorities in

Italian Eritrea Italian Eritrea (, "Colony of Eritrea") was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy in the territory of present-day Eritrea. The first Italian establishment in the area was the purchase of Assab by the Società di Navigazione Rubattino, Rubattino Shippin ...

but is now used in commerce at times. It serves as the mother tongue of a few

Italian Eritreans Italian Eritreans (or Eritrean Italians, ) are Eritrean-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Eritrea during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Eritrea. History T ...

, but is still understood and spoken as a "pidgin" by many old Eritreans and few of their children mainly in Asmara and Massawa. English was introduced in the 1940s under the British military administration of Italian Eritrea. It is now used as the ''de facto'' working language.

Official status

The 1997 Constitution of Eritrea does not define any official languages. It states that "the equality of all Eritrean languages is guaranteed" without providing a conclusive list of the languages in question. The

CIA Factbook ''The World Factbook'', also known as the ''CIA World Factbook'', is a reference resource produced by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print ver ...

cites Tigrinya, Arabic and English as official languages, alongside ethnic Eritrean languages like Tigre, Afar and other Cushitic languages, as well as the Nilo-Saharan Kunama. SIL Ethnologue lists Tigrinya as the '' de facto'' language of national identity, Arabic as the ''de facto'' national language, and English as the ''de facto'' working language. The Eritrean embassy in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

says, "The main working languages are Tigrinya and Arabic. English is the medium of instruction from middle school level upwards."

Writing and literacy

According to the Ministry of Information of Eritrea, an estimated 80% of the country's population is literate. In terms of

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

s, Eritrea's principal orthography is Ge'ez,

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

and

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

. Ge'ez is employed as an

abugida An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...

for the two most spoken languages in the country: Tigrinya and Tigre. It first came into usage in the 6th and 5th centuries BC as an

abjad An abjad ( or abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving the vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introd ...

to transcribe the Semitic Ge'ez language.Rodolfo Fattovich, "Akkälä Guzay" in Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C''. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz KG, 2003, p. 169. Ge'ez now serves as the liturgical language of the

Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches with its headquarters in Asmara, Eritrea. It was given autocephaly by Shenouda III of Alexandria, pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, after Eritrea gained its in ...

and

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...

es. The Latin script is used to write the majority of the country's other languages excluding Arabic. The

has also been used to write Afar, Beja, Saho and Tigre in the past. However, Tigre is mostly written in Ge'ez script now while the Latin script is used to write the other languages. For example, ''Qafar Feera'', a modified

, serves as an orthography for transcribing Afar.

Notes

References

External links

Language Policy and Education
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