Tigrinya is a language spoken mainly in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, in east Africa.  Though it is the 4th most spoken language in Ethiopia, until 2020, Eritrea was the only country in the world to recognize Tigrinya.  In that year, Ethiopia made changes to also acknowledge Tigrinya.  This speaks to a long political back and forth between the Amharic peoples of Ethiopia and the Tigrinya speakers of Eritrea.

Tigrinya is a Semitic Ethiopian language, distantly related to Arabic and Hebrew.  It shares some features: doubled consonant length affects the meaning of words, and there are several velar and uvular fricatives (pronounced in the throat).