Woldu T Debessai

English-Tigrinya-Amharic Dictionary Woldu T Debessai

This trilingual book has 8,000 word entries with transliteration. It is a vocabulary powerhouse, with the 5,000 most commonly used English words (written and/or spoken), plus a combined total of 3,000 Tigrinya and Amharic word entries. In order to help with phonetic pronunciation, English words are written in Geez scripts (), while Tigrinya and Amharic word meanings are Romanized. Thus, it is a great reference book for ESL/ELL students to use for standardized testing. It is equipped with a concise yet informative introduction of the Tigrinya and Amharic languages. Both Tigrinya and Amharic are Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) languages derived from an ancient Ethiopian language, Geez; moreover, both languages share the same unique Geez alphabet, albeit with some pronunciation differences. Both languages are written from left to right. The quantity and uniqueness of the letters in the alphabet might be intimidating at the beginning, but there are some easy patterns that enable learning them faster. Once you have mastered the alphabet, it is rare to misspell words of Tigrinya or Amharic




Tigrinya and Amharic are official languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia respectively; Tigrinya is spoken in both countries. The total population who speak the two languages in the two countries, including those who speak them as a second language, is estimated to be about 55 million people.