ቀዳማይ/ቀዳሚት qedamay/ qedamit (m/f) 2nd ከልእ kaal'e : ከለኣይ/ከለኣይት kale'ay/kale'ayt (m/f) 3rd ሰልስ saals ... 4rd ረብዕ raab'e ... 5th ሐምስ ḥaams ... 6th ሰድስ saads ... 7th ሰብዕ saab'e ... 8th ሰምን saamn ... 9th ተስዕ taas'e ... 10th ዐስር 'asr ... Phonology Tigre has preserved the two pharyngeal consonants of Ge'ez. The Ge'ez vowel inventory has almost been preserved except that the two vowels which are phonetically close to and [a] seem to have evolved into a pair of phonemes which have the same quality (the same articulation) but differ in length; [a] vs. . The original phonemic distinction according to quality survives in Tigrinya. The vowel , traditionally named "first order vowel", is most commonly transcribed ä in Semitic linguistics. The phonemes of Tigre are displayed below in both International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols (indicated by the IPA brackets) and the symbols common (though not universal) among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages. For the long vowel , the symbol 'ā' is used per Raz (1983). Three consonants, /p, p', x/, occur only in a small number of loanwords, hence they are written in parentheses. As in other Ethiopian Semitic languages, the phonemic status of is questionable; it may be possible to treat it as an epenthetic vowel that is introduced to break up consonant clusters. Consonant length Consonant length is phonemic in Tigre (that is, a pair of words can be distinct by consonant length alone), although there are few such minimal pairs. Some consonants do not occur long; these include the pharyngeal consonants, the glottal consonants, , and . In this language, long consonants arise almost solely by gemination as a morphological process; there are few, if any, long consonants in word roots. Gemination is especially prominent in verb morphology. Grammar These notes use the spelling adopted by Camperio (1936 - see bibliography) which seems to approximate to Italian rules. Nouns are of two genders, masculine and feminine. Indefinite article: masculine uoro አሮ e.g. uoro ennas አሮ እነስ - a man; feminine hatte ሐተ e.g. hatte sit ሐተ እሲት - a woman. The definite article, "the", when expressed, is la ለ e.g. ለጸሐይ ወ ለወርሕ - the sun and the moon. As we might expect from a Semitic language, specifically feminine forms, where they exist, are often formed of an element with t: masculine: አድግ ʼadəg- donkey, ass; feminine: እድግሀት ʼədgəhat - she-ass; masculine: