Editing Tigrinya language (section)

=== Consonant phonemes ===
Tigrinya has a fairly typical set of phonemes for an Ethiopian Semitic language. That is, there is a set of [[ejective consonant]]s and the usual seven-vowel system. Unlike many of the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, Tigrinya has preserved the two [[pharyngeal consonant]]s which were apparently part of the ancient [[Geʽez language]] and which, along with {{IPAblink|xʼ}}, voiceless [[velar ejective fricative]] or voiceless [[uvular ejective fricative]], make it easy to distinguish spoken Tigrinya from related languages such as Amharic, though not from Tigre, which has also maintained the [[pharyngeal consonant]]s.

The charts below show the phonemes of Tigrinya. The sounds are shown using the same system for representing the sounds as in the rest of the article. When the [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] symbol is different, the orthography is indicated in brackets.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+ [[Consonant]]s
|-
! rowspan="2" colspan="2"|
! rowspan="2" |[[Labial consonant|Labial]]
! rowspan="2" |[[Dental consonant|Dental]]/<br>[[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! rowspan="2" |[[Postalveolar consonant|Postalveolar]]/<br />[[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! colspan="2" |[[Velar consonant|Velar]]
! rowspan="2" |[[Pharyngeal consonant|Pharyngeal]]
! rowspan="2" |[[Glottal consonant|Glottal]]
|-
! <small>Plain</small>
! <small>[[Labialization|Lab.]]</small>
|-
!colspan="2"|[[Nasal stop|Nasal]]
|{{IPA link|m}}
|{{IPA link|n}}
|{{IPA link|ɲ}} {{grapheme|ñ}}
|
|
|
|
|-
!rowspan="3"|[[Plosive]]
!<small>[[Voice (phonetics)|voiceless]]</small>
|{{IPA link|p}}
|{{IPA link|t}}
|{{IPA link|tʃ}} {{grapheme|č}}
|{{IPA link|k}}
|{{IPA link|kʷ}}
|
|{{IPA link|ʔ}} {{grapheme|’}}
|-
!<small>[[Voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
|{{IPA link|b}}
|{{IPA link|d}}
|{{IPA link|dʒ}} {{grapheme|ǧ}}
|{{IPA link|ɡ}}
|{{IPA link|ɡʷ}}
|
|
|-
!<small>[[Ejective consonant|ejective]]</small>
|{{IPA link|pʼ}} {{grapheme|p̣}}
|{{IPA link|tʼ}} {{grapheme|ṭ}}
|{{IPA link|tʃʼ}} {{grapheme|č̣}}
|{{IPA link|kʼ}} {{grapheme|q}}
|{{IPA link|kʷʼ}} {{grapheme|qʷ}}
|
|
|-
!rowspan="3"|[[Fricative]]
!<small>[[Voice (phonetics)|voiceless]]</small>
|{{IPA link|f}}
|{{IPA link|s}}
|{{IPA link|ʃ}} {{grapheme|š}}
|{{IPA link|x}}{{efn|name=x_allophones|The [[fricative]] sounds {{IPA|[x]}}, {{IPA link|[xʷ]}}, {{IPA|[xʼ]}} and {{IPA link|[xʷʼ]}} occur as [[#Allophones|allophones]] of the corresponding velar plosives.}} {{grapheme|ḵ}}
|{{IPA link|xʷ}}{{efn|name=x_allophones}} {{grapheme|ḵʷ}}
|{{IPA link|ħ}} {{grapheme|ḥ}}
|{{IPA link|h}}
|-
!<small>[[Voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
|{{IPA link|v}}{{efn|The consonant /v/ occurs only in recent borrowings from European languages.}}
|{{IPA link|z}}
|{{IPA link|ʒ}} {{grapheme|ž}}
|
|
|{{IPA link|ʕ}} {{grapheme|{{ayin}}}}
|
|-
!<small>[[Ejective consonant|ejective]]</small>
|
|{{IPA link|tsʼ}} {{grapheme|ṣ}}
|
|{{IPA link|xʼ}}{{efn|name=x_allophones}} {{grapheme|q̱}}
|{{IPA link|xʷʼ}}{{efn|name=x_allophones}} {{grapheme|q̱ʷ}}
|
|
|-
!colspan="2"|[[Approximant]]
|
|{{IPA link|l}}
|{{IPA link|j}} {{grapheme|y}}
|
|{{IPA link|w}}
|
|
|-
!colspan="2"|[[Rhotic consonant|Rhotic]]
|
|{{IPA link|r}}
|
|
|
|
|
|}
{{notelist}}