Tigrinya speaking countries
Tigrinya is the official language in Eritrea and is spoken in Ethiopia as monther tongue by a part of the population. The Tigrinya language (native name: ትግርኛ) has its roots in the Afro-Asiatic language family.With 7.10 million native speakers, Tigrinya has the highest prevalence in Ethiopia. As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 49 percent is in Eritrea. A total of about 8.9 million people worldwide speak Tigrinya as their mother tongue.
| Country | Region | Official language | Distribution | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethiopia | Eastern Africa | no | 5.9 % | 7,097,000 |
| Eritrea | Eastern Africa | yes | 49.1 % | 1,778,000 |
Unless otherwise described in the text, this page is about native speakers — not the total number of speakers. How many people understand or speak Tigrinya as a subsequently learned language is not the subject of this page. Countries where native speakers make up only a few thousand, or even a few hundred people, or countries with a percentage well below 1% are unlikely to be listed here.