Origins
Between the fourth and eleventh centuries AD, the Ge'ez language was the main language of axumite empire, and for some time thereafter it remained the language of literature. This literature, shared between Eritrea and Ethiopia, consisted mainly of historical tales about royals and other nobles; ecclesiastical works, often in translation; and religious poetry. Ge'ez passed down to modern Tigrinya the Ge'ez alphabet and a substantial vocabulary.
The continued dominance of Ge'ez as a literary language after it was supplanted by Tigrinya as a demotic tongue means that very little is known of 'low' literature prior to the arrival of European missionaries in the 19th century. The first work published in Tigrinya was a translation of the Gospels, written in the 1830s and published in 1866. European missionaries were responsible for a stream of publications from the 1890s onwards, including the first Tigrinya language newspaper in 1909.
Read more about this topic: Eritrean Literature
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