Bilen language
language
The Bilen language (ብሊና b(ɨ)lina or ብሊን b(ɨ)lin) is spoken by the Bilen people in and around the city of Keren in Eritrea. It is the only Agaw (Central Cushitic) language spoken in Eritrea. It is spoken by about 72,000 people.
Spelling of the name
"Blin" is an English spelling often used by native speakers, but Bilin and Bilen are also commonly used. Bilin is the reference name arbitrarily used in the current initial English editions of ISO 639-3, but Blin is also listed as an equivalent name without preference. In the English list of ISO 639-2, Blin is listed in first position in both English and French lists, when Bilin is listed as an alternate name in the English list, and Bilen is the alternate name in the French list. The Ethnologue report lists Bilen as the preferred name, but also Bogo, Bogos, Bilayn, Bilin, Balen, Beleni, Belen, Bilein, Bileno, North Agaw as alternative names.
Phonology
It is not clear if Bilen has tone. It may have pitch accent (Fallon 2004) as prominent syllables always have a high tone, but not all words have such a syllable.
Vowels
Consonants
Note: /tʃ/ is found in loans, and the status of /ʔ/ as a phoneme is uncertain.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q56491. The Library of Congress control number is sh85014026. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bilen language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.