Ethiopia – Distribution of Mother-Tongues – a rare 1976 map uncovered

As part of our study on historical cartography and ethno-linguistic maps in the Horn of Africa and Western Tigray, we discovered the language map for this book, which contains significant information on the geographic region where the Tigrinya language is spoken: "Language in Ethiopia”, by M. L. Bender, J. D. Bowen, R. L. Cooper and C. A. Ferguson, published by Oxford University Press in 1976.

With regard to Western Tigray, on the map, the Tigrinya-speaking area extends from the Sudanese border up to the Rift Valley escarpment at the east. Two major rivers cross the Tigrinya language area, the Mereb at north and the Tekeze in the southern part. The same language community lives on both sides of the rivers. In addition to Tigrinya, the map also shows that Kunama is spoken on the southern shores of the lower Tekeze River.

The extent of the Tigrinya language on this map is in line with the Tigrinya-speaking area shown on all-but-one other language maps (often prepared by senior linguists), which are further detailed in a parallel dataset (Nyssen, J. 2022. Database: Western Tigray in 96 historical and ten ethno-linguistic maps (1607-2009): Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6557918).