Tigrinya Phrase Book (Paperback)

From the Publisher: The Red Sea Press Tigrinya Phrase Book is an essential companion to travelers to Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is the pocketbook addition to How to Say It: English, Tigrinya, Italian (RSP 1997). It provides basic phrases and sentences helping the reader get by in Tigrinya in situations such as: meeting people, hotels and restaurants, asking for directions, travel by air and other transport, the Post Office, telephone, bank, months, numbers, etc. Tigrinya is one of the African Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) languages spoken in the Eritrean Kebessa (highlands), as well as most of Tigray and parts of Wollo and Gonder in Northern Ethiopia. It is the fourth widely spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic, Amharic, and Hebrew. Tigrinya, as a spoken language, evolved from the ancient Aksumite language of Ge'ez around the 13th century, but developed as a literary language only after the beginning of the 19th century.