Tigrinya people

The Tigrinya people (Tigrinya: ትግርኛ, romanized: Təgrəñña, pronounced [tɨɡrɨɲːä] ), also known as the Biher-Tigrinya (ብሄረ ትግርኛ, bəherä Təgrəñña) or Kebessa, are a Tigrinya-speaking ethnic group indigenous to the highlands of Eritrea, specifically the historical provinces of Akele Guzai, Hamasien, Seraye.

Etymology

One view believes that the name comes from the word tägärät (ተገረት), meaning "she ascended". The word tägäru (ተገሩ) "they ascended" describes the ascension of the earliest indigenous people to the mountainous highlands of Eritrea as the plateau's first settlers. The Tigrinya tribe were first mentioned around the 8th to 10th centuries, in which period manuscripts preserving the inscriptions of Cosmas Indicopleustes (fl. 6th century) contain notes on his writings including the mention of a tribe called Tigretes.

The word Kebessa in the form khebsi, has also been found in Ancient Egyptian inscriptions in reference to the Land of Punt, however, concentrating later on during the Ptolemaic period, the word khebsi roughly translates to "those who cut or detach the incense from the tree".

In Tigrinya, Kebessa was originally a geographical term referring to the upper level of the highlands — the coldest and most inhospitable climatic belt north of the Mereb. Among Tigre speakers, Kebessa is used as a place name for their home in the Eritrean highlands, while Habesha refers to the entire Ethio-Eritrean highland region, predominantly inhabited by Tigrinya speakers. Therefore, the suggested connection between the words Kebessa and Habesha is phonetically and semantically untenable. The term Kebessa might derive from the South-Semitic root kbs meaning "to embrace" or "to encompass," and its original meaning might have been "surrounding land" in both Tigrinya and Tigre.