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53-854: The Tigray Defense Forces ( TDF ; Tigrinya : ሓይልታት ምክልኻል ትግራይ ), colloquially called the Tigray Army ( ሰራዊት ትግራይ ), is a paramilitary group located in the Tigray region of Ethiopia . It was founded by former generals of the Ethiopian Military in 2020 to combat federal forces enforcing national government mandates in the Tigray region, culminating in 2020 with the outbreak of the Tigray War . The TDF has made use of guerilla tactics and strategies. Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported that

106-535: A Tigrayan , that is a native of Tigray , who also speaks the Tigrinya language, is referred to in Tigrinya as təgraway (male), təgrawäyti (female), tägaru (plural). Bəher roughly means "nation" in the ethnic sense of the word in Tigrinya, Tigre , Amharic and Ge'ez. The Jeberti in Eritrea also speak Tigrinya. Tigrinya is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea (see Demographics of Eritrea ), and

159-651: A minority of Ahbash followers. Today, the Muslim community is concentrated mainly in urban areas. Many Jeberti in Eritrea claim that they are a separate ethnic group from the Tigrinya people in the area and consider their native languages to be both Arabic and Tigrinya , and are thus treated as a separate ethno-religious community. Tigrayans are sometimes described as “individualistic”, due to elements of competition and local conflicts. This, however, rather reflects

212-441: A pagan religion with a number of deities, including the sun god Utu , and the moon god Almaqah . Some tribes however practiced Judaism . The most prominent polytheistic kingdoms was D’mt and early Aksum . Christianity has been the predominant religion of Tigrayans since antiquity . Tigrayan Christians are mostly Oriental Orthodox with a Catholic and Pentay minority. Tigrayan Muslims are virtually all Sunni , including

265-623: A peace researcher. The TDF has been accused of forced recruitment, including the usage of child soldiers . According to Tigrayan administrative officials, each household in Tigray was required to enlist one member in the TDF, and those who refused detained and jailed, including the parents of children who refused enlistment. As well as forced recruitment and enlistment quotas, the Jamestown Foundation has said, "The Ethiopian government 's scorched earth strategy in Tigray has all but ensured

318-618: A standard. Even though the most spread and used in, for example books, movies and news is the Asmara dialect. For the representation of Tigrinya sounds, this article uses a modification of a system that is common (though not universal) among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages , but differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet . Tigrinya has a fairly typical set of phonemes for an Ethiopian Semitic language. That is, there

371-440: A strong tendency to defend one's own community and local rights against—then widespread—interferences, be it from more powerful individuals or the state. Tigrayans communities are marked by numerous social institutions with a strong networking of character, where relations are based on mutual rights and bonds. Economic and other support is mediated by these institutions. In the urban context, the modern local government have taken over

424-434: A weapon of war , use of civilians as human shields , and widespread looting and destruction of civilian infrastructure and private property. Multiple international news organizations reported that the TDF has razed a village near Kobbo, North Wollo These reports show satellite imagery of the village before and after being burned. Tigrinya language Tigrinya ( ትግርኛ , Təgrəñña ), sometimes spelled Tigrigna ,

477-512: A word, the cluster is broken up with the introduction of an epenthetic vowel -ə- , and when two consonants (or one geminated consonant) would otherwise end a word, the vowel -i appears after them, or (when this happens because of the presence of a suffix) -ə- is introduced before the suffix. For example, Stress is neither contrastive nor particularly salient in Tigrinya. It seems to depend on gemination, but it has apparently not been systematically investigated. Grammatically, Tigrinya

530-405: Is ä, the first column in the table. However, since the pharyngeal and glottal consonants of Tigrinya (and other Ethiopian Semitic languages) cannot be followed by this vowel, the symbols in the first column for those consonants are pronounced with the vowel a, exactly as in the fourth column. These redundant symbols are falling into disuse in Tigrinya and are shown with a dark gray background in

583-408: Is a dish originating from the historical Agame and Akkele Guzai provinces. The dish is unique to these parts of both countries, but is now slowly spreading throughout the entire region. T'ihlo is made using moistened roasted barley flour that is kneaded to a certain consistency. The dough is then broken into small ball shapes and is laid out around a bowl of spicy meat stew. A two-pronged wooden fork

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636-488: Is a set of ejective consonants and the usual seven-vowel system. Unlike many of the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has preserved the two pharyngeal consonants which were apparently part of the ancient Geʽez language and which, along with [ xʼ ] , voiceless velar ejective fricative or voiceless uvular ejective fricative , make it easy to distinguish spoken Tigrinya from related languages such as Amharic, though not from Tigre, which has also maintained

689-518: Is a typical Ethiopian Semitic (ES) language in most ways: Tigrinya grammar is unique within the Ethiopian Semitic language family in several ways: Tigrinya is written in the Geʽez script , originally developed for Geʽez. The Ethiopic script is an abugida : each symbol represents a consonant+vowel syllable, and the symbols are organized in groups of similar symbols on the basis of both

742-586: Is also of great importance for conflict resolution. Tigrayans food characteristically consists of vegetable and often very spicy meat dishes, usually in the form of tsebhi ( Tigrinya : ፀብሒ ), a thick stew, served atop injera , a large sourdough flatbread . As the vast majority of Tigrayans belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (and the minority Muslims), pork is not consumed because of religious beliefs. Meat and dairy products are not consumed on Wednesdays and Fridays, and also during

795-413: Is an Ethio-Semitic language commonly spoken in Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia 's Tigray Region by the Tigrinya and Tigrayan peoples respectively. It is also spoken by the global diaspora of these regions. Although it differs markedly from the Geʽez (Classical Ethiopic) language, for instance in having phrasal verbs, and in using a word order that places the main verb last instead of first in

848-525: Is especially clear from verb roots in which one consonant is realized as one or the other allophone depending on what precedes it. For example, for the verb meaning ' cry ' , which has the triconsonantal root √b-k-y, there are forms such as ምብካይ /məbkaj/ ( ' to cry ' ) and በኸየ /bɐxɐjɐ/ ( ' he cried ' ), and for the verb meaning ' steal ' , which has the triconsonantal root √s-r-kʼ, there are forms such as ይሰርቁ /jəsɐrkʼu/ ( ' they steal ' ) and ይሰርቕ /jəsɐrrəxʼ/ ( ' he steals ' ). What

901-453: Is especially interesting about these pairs of phones is that they are distinguished in Tigrinya orthography. Because allophones are completely predictable, it is quite unusual for them to be represented with distinct symbols in the written form of a language. A Tigrinya syllable may consist of a consonant-vowel or a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence. When three consonants (or one geminated consonant and one simple consonant) come together within

954-464: Is indicated in brackets. Gemination , the doubling of a consonantal sound, is meaningful in Tigrinya, i.e. it affects the meaning of words. While gemination plays an important role in the morphology of the Tigrinya verb, it is normally accompanied by other marks. But there is a small number of pairs of words which are only differentiable from each other by gemination, e.g. /kʼɐrrɐbɐ/ , ( ' he brought forth ' ); /kʼɐrɐbɐ/ , ( ' he came closer ' ). All

1007-448: Is now considered old-fashioned. These less-used series are shown with a dark gray background in the chart. The orthography does not mark gemination, so the pair of words qärräbä 'he approached', qäräbä 'he was near' are both written ቀረበ . Since such minimal pairs are very rare, this presents no problem to readers of the language. Tigrayans The daily life of Tigrayans is highly influenced by religious concepts. For example,

1060-413: Is the fourth most spoken language. Several Tigrinya dialects, which differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically from place to place, are more broadly classified as Eritrean Tigrinya or Tigray (Ethiopian) dialects. No dialect appears to be accepted as a standard. Tigrinya is closely related to Amharic and Tigre (in Eritrea commonly called Tigrayit), another East African Semitic language spoken by

1113-533: The Mengistu Haile Mariam -led brutal military dictatorship ( Derg ) used the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia as government policy (by restricting food supplies) for counter-insurgency strategy (against Tigray People's Liberation Front guerrilla-soldiers), and for "social transformation" in non-insurgent areas (against people of Tigray province, Welo province and such). deliberately multiplied

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1166-660: The Monumentum Adulitanum in the 3rd century; the cattle herders in Humera; the egalitarian Wajjarat of south-eastern Tigray. There are also some immigrant Tigrayans in the neighbouring country of Eritrea as well as abroad in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. The decline of the Tigrayan population in Ethiopia was caused by the 1958 famine in Tigray, when over 100,000 people died. Later on,

1219-488: The Tigre as well as many Beja of Eritrea and Sudan . Tigrinya and Tigre, though more closely related to each other linguistically than either is to Amharic, are however not mutually intelligible. Tigrinya has traditionally been written using the same Ge'ez alphabet ( fidel ) as Amharic and Tigre . The daily life of Tigrayans are highly influenced by religion. Before the coming of Christianity, most Tigrayans followed

1272-462: The pharyngeal consonants . The charts below show the phonemes of Tigrinya. The sounds are shown using the same system for representing the sounds as in the rest of the article. When the IPA symbol is different, the orthography is indicated in brackets. The sounds are shown using the same system for representing the sounds as in the rest of the article. When the IPA symbol is different, the orthography

1325-425: The uvular place of articulation (although it is represented in this article as [xʼ] ). All of these possible realizations – velar ejective fricative , uvular ejective fricative , velar ejective affricate and uvular ejective affricate – are cross-linguistically very rare sounds. Since these two sounds are completely conditioned by their environments, they can be considered allophones of /k/ and /kʼ/ . This

1378-515: The "Tigrētai" then meant "the tribes near Adulis". These are believed to be the ancient people from whom the present-day Tigray, the Eritrean tribes Tigre and Tigrinya are descended from. There is no indication that the term Tigray could be explained through Ge'ez gäzärä ("subdue"), with the meaning "the submitted" (in supposed contrast to the "free" Agaziyan linked with the rulers of Aksum). According to Scottish explorer James Bruce , Abyssinia

1431-635: The 13th century. In Eritrea, during British administration , the Ministry of Information put out a weekly newspaper in Tigrinya that cost 5 cents and sold 5,000 copies weekly. At the time, it was reported to be the first of its kind. Tigrinya (along with Arabic) was one of Eritrea's official languages during its short-lived federation with Ethiopia . In 1958, it was replaced by the Southern Ethiopic language Amharic prior to its annexation. Upon Eritrea's independence in 1991, Tigrinya retained

1484-513: The Christian Orthodox fasting periods are strictly observed, especially in Tigray; but also traditional local beliefs such as in spirits, are widespread. In Tigray the language of the church remains exclusively Ge’ez . Tigrayan society is marked by a strong ideal of communitarianism and, especially in the rural sphere, by egalitarian principles. This does not exclude an important role of gerontocratic rules and in some regions such as

1537-550: The TDF commander in chief and remained in that post until March 2021, when he became a member of the Central Command. Lieutenant General Tadesse Werede Tesfay is part of the command and Commander-in-Chief of the TDF since March 2021. Brigadier General Migbey Haile is Commander of the Army. Brigadier General Abraha Tesfay is Commander of Army. "Before the outbreak of hostilities, the Tigray regional forces (forerunner of

1590-537: The TDF has committed war crimes against civilians including gang rape and extrajudicial killing during their occupation of both the Afar and Amhara regions. According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice , TDF combatants have been found liable for upwards of 540 civilians casualties. as of 28 December 2021. The Tigray Defense Forces consist of former members of the gendarmerie Regional Special Forces in

1643-591: The TDF) functioned as a more traditional military force that was well-supplied and trained in the use of heavy weapons. However, the Ethiopian Army and the Ethiopian Air Force successfully targeted the TDF's heavy equipment during the first weeks of the war. However, much of this equipment was abandoned by the TDF before it was targeted. The TPLF leadership knew that such equipment would be useless for

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1696-573: The TDF. Many TDF officers and non-commissioned officers defected from the ENDF in the lead up to and during the Tigray War . In a Zoom meeting with Tigray diaspora activists in June 2021, President of the Tigray region, Debretsion Gebremichael , stated that the TDF is led by a central command which coordinates their military actions. Lieutenant General Tsadkan Gebretensae , who was the chief of staff of Ethiopian National Defense Forces until 2001, became

1749-531: The Tigray Region in towns including Mekelle , Adwa , Axum , Adigrat , and Shire . Huge populations of Tigrayans are also found in other large Ethiopian cities such as the capital Addis Ababa and Gondar . The Tigrayans are, despite a general impression of homogeneity, composed of numerous subgroups with their own socio-cultural traditions. Among these there are the Agame of eastern Tigray, mentioned in

1802-453: The Tigray Region, ENDF defectors, local militia, members of Tigrayan regional political parties including the TPLF , National Congress of Great Tigray , Salsay Weyane Tigray , Tigray Independence Party and others, as well as numerous youth who fled to the mountains. Internally, analysts believe that the relative influence of the TPLF has been weakened to the benefit of newer elements within

1855-512: The alienation of most Tigrayans . It has also ensured that the TDF will have no shortage of committed fighters and sympathetic supporters within Tigray." and that, "After the ENDF and soldiers from the Eritrean Army took over Tigray’s major towns, TDF forces retreated to strongholds in the mountainous central interior of the region. There, the TDF consolidated forces and re-organized for a transition to guerrilla-style combat... Following what

1908-457: The consonant and the vowel. In the table below the columns are assigned to the seven vowels of Tigrinya; they appear in the traditional order. The rows are assigned to the consonants, again in the traditional order. For each consonant in an abugida, there is an unmarked symbol representing that consonant followed by a canonical or inherent vowel . For the Ethiopic abugida, this canonical vowel

1961-432: The consonants, with the exception of the pharyngeal and glottal , can be geminated. The velar consonants /k/ and /kʼ/ are pronounced differently when they appear immediately after a vowel and are not geminated . In these circumstances, /k/ is pronounced as a velar fricative . /kʼ/ is pronounced as a fricative, or sometimes as an affricate . This fricative or affricate is more often pronounced further back, in

2014-642: The contemporary Tigrayans to be the successors of the Aksumite Empire . A variant of the term Tigray, first appears in a 10th-century gloss to Cosmas Indicopleustes Indicopleustes , i.e. after the Aksumite period; according to this source one of the groups of the region were the "Tigrētai" and the "Agazē" (i.e. the Agʿazi ) the latter being the Aksumites. The toponym Tigray is probably originally ethnic,

2067-493: The de facto administration of the Amhara Region , having been forcibly annexed by Amhara during the Tigray War . The Tigrayans trace their origin to early Semitic-speaking peoples whose presence in the region may date back to at least 2000 BC. According to Edward Ullendorff , the Tigrinya speakers in Eritrea and Tigray are the authentic carriers of the historical and cultural tradition of ancient Abyssinia. He regards

2120-466: The effects of the famine left 300,000 to 1.2 million people death in Ethiopia from this famine. According to United States Agency for International Development in the fall of 1984, the hardest hit regions of the famine were Tigray, Wollo and Eritrea . Tigrayans speak Tigrinya as a mother tongue. It belongs to the Ethiopian Semitic subgroup of the Afroasiatic family. In Ethiopia, Tigrinya

2173-590: The fourth most spoken language in Ethiopia after Amharic , Oromo , and Somali . It is also spoken by large immigrant communities around the world, in countries including Sudan , Saudi Arabia , Israel, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. In Australia, Tigrinya is one of the languages broadcast on public radio via the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service . Tigrinya dialects differ phonetically, lexically, and grammatically. No dialect appears to be accepted as

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2226-494: The functions of traditional associations. In most rural areas, however, traditional social organizations are fully in function. All members of such an extended family are linked by strong mutual obligations. Villages are usually perceived as genealogical communities, consisting of several lineages. A remarkable heritage of Tigrayans are their customary laws. In Tigray, customary law is also still partially practiced to some degree even in political self-organization and penal cases. It

2279-467: The governor has the choice of all commodities wherewith to make his market." By the beginning of the 19th century Henry Salt , who travelled in the interior of Ethiopia, divided the Ethiopian region into three distinct and independent states. These three great divisions (based arbitrarily on Language) are Tigre, Amhara, and the province of Shewa . Salt considered Tigre as the more powerful state of

2332-547: The kind of war that they would have to wage." According to the Jamestown Foundation; "Young men and women—many of whom fear being raped or murdered—are fleeing to areas under the nominal control of the TDF. The TDF is also accused of carrying out attacks on Amhara civilians." Members of Tigrayan civil society have also joined the TDF, including Professor Kindeya Gebrehiwot , previous president of Mekelle University ; Desta Gebremedhin, previous journalist of BBC World , numerous popular musicians, and Professor Mulugeta Gebrehiwot ,

2385-579: The population of Ethiopia and are largely small holding farmers inhabiting small communal villages. The Tigrayans constitute the fourth largest ethnic group in the country after the Oromo , Amhara and Somali . They are mainly Christian and members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church with a small minority of Muslims, Catholics and Protestants. The predominantly Tigrayan populated urban centers in Ethiopia are found within

2438-539: The sentence, there is a strong influence of Geʽez on Tigrinya literature, especially with terms relating to Christian life, Biblical names, and so on. Ge'ez, because of its status in Eritrean and Ethiopian culture, and possibly also its simple structure, acted as a literary medium until relatively recent times. The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the district of Logosarda, Debub Region in Southern Eritrea, which dates from

2491-409: The seven compulsory fasts. Because of this reason, many vegan meals are present. Eating around a shared food basket, mäsob ( Tigrinya : መሶብ ) is a custom in the Tigray region and is usually done so with families and guests. The food is eaten using no cutlery, using only the fingers ( of the right hand ) and sourdough flatbread to grab the contents on the bread. T'ihlo ( Tigrinya : ጥሕሎ , ṭïḥlo )

2544-468: The status of working language in the country. Eritrea was the only state in the world to officially recognize Tigrinya until 2020, when Ethiopia made changes to recognize Tigrinya on a national level. There is no general name for the people who speak Tigrinya. In Eritrea, Tigrinya speakers are officially known as the Bəher-Təgrəñña ( ' nation of Tigrinya speakers ' ) or Tigrinya people . In Ethiopia,

2597-552: The table. When it is necessary to represent a consonant with no following vowel, the consonant + ə form is used (the symbol in the sixth column). For example, the word ʼǝntay 'what?' is written እንታይ , literally ʼǝ-nǝ-ta-yǝ. Since some of the distinctions that were apparently made in Ge'ez have been lost in Tigrinya, there are two rows of symbols each for the consonants ‹ḥ›, ‹s›, and ‹sʼ›. In Eritrea, for ‹s› and ‹sʼ›, at least, one of these has fallen into disuse in Tigrinya and

2650-592: The three; a circumstance arising from the natural strength of the country, the warlike disposition of its inhabitants, and its vicinity to the sea coast; an advantage that allowed it to secure a monopoly on all the muskets imported into the country. He divided the Tigre kingdom into several provinces with the seat of the state, a region around Adwa, being referred as Tigre proper. The other Provinces of this kingdom includes Raya , Enderta , Agame , Wojjerat , Tembien , and Shire . Tigrayans constitute approximately 6.1% of

2703-413: The wider Adwa area, formerly the prevalence of feudal lords, who, however, still had to respect the local land rights. Tigrayans are branched out across the world in diaspora communities but are native residence of Tigray. Areas where Tigrayans have strong ancestral links are: Enderta , Agame , Tembien , Kilite Awlalo , Axum , Raya, Humera, Welkait, and Tsegede. The latter three areas are now under

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2756-459: Was a strategic retreat to the rugged interior, TDF forces re-organized into small, highly-mobile, lightly armed, detachments of ten to eighty fighters. These detachments were then further divided into mission-specific units." The TDF have been implicated in numerous war crimes in Afar and Amhara Regions to include the extrajudicial killings of civilians, indiscriminate shelling and shooting, rape as

2809-514: Was geographically divided into two provinces; "Tigré, which extends from the Red Sea to the river Tacazzé; and Amhara, from that river westward to the Galla, which inclose Abyssinia proper on all sides except the north-west." Tigray he notes, "is a large and important province, of great wealth and power. All the merchandise destined to cross the Red Sea to Arabia must pass through this province, so that

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