Languages › Tigrinya
Tigrinya translation services provide Tigrinya ⇄ German for authorities, courts and the BAMF — asylum, family reunification and registry offices — produced by sworn, court-authorised German translators who are Tigrinya native speakers. Work is set in the Ge'ez script, never confused with Amharic, and certified on request for the authorities here. Tigrinya ⇄ English covers international contexts. Prices start from €1.09 per standard line.
Native Tigrinya specialists · Ge'ez script · Eritrea / Tigray correctly identified · certified translations recognised by German authorities
Short & clear
Tigrinya (ትግርኛ) is the official language of Eritrea and is also spoken in the Ethiopian region of Tigray — by several million people in all. It shares the Ge'ez script with Amharic, but is a separate language that is not mutually intelligible with it. Whether it is an Eritrean birth certificate for the BAMF, a Tigrayan diploma for recognition, an asylum or family-reunification file, or documentation for an English-language project, the work is done by native Tigrinya specialists with a proven field — not by an Amharic translator.
We work in both directions and both pairings. Tigrinya ⇄ German is what German authorities and courts need — certified translations, exact name transfer and dates read against the right calendar. Tigrinya ⇄ English covers international and diaspora life: applications, resettlement paperwork, references and documentation that circulate in English.
Who it's for
Most people who search for this in English are already fluent Tigrinya speakers dealing with a German system — or the organisations and internationals who work with them in English. Both are covered.
Birth, marriage and baptismal certificates, court letters, diplomas and identity papers for the BAMF, an immigration office, a registry office (Standesamt) or recognition of qualifications — the backbone of asylum and family-reunification cases. Issued in the Ge'ez script, they need a certified German translation with names transferred exactly and dates read against the right calendar.
Applications, references, resettlement and diaspora paperwork and organisational documents that an employer, a university or a partner abroad expects in English rather than German. Same specialists, same care with the script and terminology.
German decisions, certificates, powers of attorney and rulings that have to be understood by a Tigrinya-speaking recipient — a family member, a client, an applicant — rendered into standard Tigrinya in the variety that fits their origin.
Welfare bodies, law firms, clinics and employers working with the Eritrean and Tigrayan community, or teams that run in English while the paperwork is German or Tigrinya. We assign a specialist for the direction and field you actually need, not a one-size-fits-all pair.
Language & script
Tigrinya is written in the Ge'ez script (fidäl), an abugida it shares with Amharic and Ge'ez: each character stands for a consonant-plus-vowel combination, in seven vowel orders — pick the wrong order and you write a different name. Being written in Ethiopic letters therefore does not make a text Amharic. Two further traits catch out non-specialists: gemination (the doubling of a consonant) is not written, so identically spelled words can mean different things; and the naming system has no inherited surname — a person carries a given name plus the father's name, not a family name to be filed as a "last name".
The other decisive point is origin: a Tigrinya document comes from Eritrea or from the Ethiopian region of Tigray, with different issuing authorities, date systems and legalisation routes. Ethiopian (Tigray) certificates usually carry a date in the Ethiopian calendar, seven to eight years behind the Gregorian and with 13 months, and may use Ge'ez numerals (፩ ፪ ፫). For official use, an authorised translator issues a certified translation; whether a legalisation is also needed is something we check in advance — it is issued by the competent authority, not by the translation agency.
Quality you only notice at the receiving end
Between English or German and Tigrinya lie a syllabic script, two possible countries of origin and a different naming system. These pitfalls separate a native professional translation from a literal one — each is specific to Tigrinya and demonstrable.
| Pitfall | Why it goes wrong | How the FÜD solves it |
|---|---|---|
| Tigrinya treated as Amharic | Tigrinya and Amharic share the Ge'ez script but are separate, not mutually intelligible languages. Hand a Tigrinya document to an Amharic translator "because it's the same letters" and you get mistakes or blanks. | We confirm the source language first and assign a native Tigrinya specialist — kept separate from Amharic. |
| Wrong vowel order in the fidäl | Each Ge'ez character is a consonant in one of seven vowel orders; the shapes differ only slightly. Read the order wrong and the name, place or word changes — often silently. | Names and terms are read character by character in the correct order and checked against the passport or original. |
| Origin Eritrea / Tigray not recognised | Tigrinya certificates come from Eritrea or from Ethiopia (Tigray). Issuing authorities, date systems and the legalisation route differ; miss the origin and the authority name and date are placed wrongly. | We identify the origin from the authority, emblem and form language and render the official designations of the right country. |
| Ethiopian date copied 1:1 | Ethiopian (Tigray) certificates usually date in the Ethiopian calendar — 7–8 years behind the Gregorian, with 13 months. Carried over unchanged, age, majority or deadlines no longer add up. | Every date is converted transparently and, where useful, shown with the original; for Eritrean documents the system used there is applied. |
| Ge'ez numerals ፩ ፪ ፫ misread | Dates, file numbers and amounts can carry Ge'ez number signs (፩=1, ፪=2, ፲=10). Left in place or misread, the figure flips. | Ge'ez numerals are converted unambiguously to Arabic figures and checked digit by digit against the original. |
| Father's name filed as a surname | As in Ethiopia, the name is a given name plus the father's given name; there is no inherited family name. File the father's name as a "surname" and translation, passport and register drift apart. | The name parts are transferred exactly as in the passport and their function (given name / father's name) is explained — without inventing a family name. |
| Ge'ez punctuation overlooked | Tigrinya uses the word separator ፡ and the sentence stop ። instead of spaces and full stops. Careless copying or OCR splits or fuses words — names and numbers slip. | The source is captured character-exact; word separators and stops are set correctly so names, places and figures stay cleanly apart. |
None of these is a grammar slip — most survive any spell-check. They arise at the seam of script, origin and naming law, and they only surface at the receiving end: the BAMF, the administrative court, the immigration office, the registry office. That is exactly where native professional translation earns its place.
Ge'ez letters alone do not yet make it Tigrinya.
So: native Tigrinya specialists, a sure hand with the Ge'ez script, and the right reading of origin and calendar.
Certification & recognition
For submission to German authorities and courts, a court-authorised translator (in German, ermächtigter Übersetzer, publicly authorised under German state law) produces a certified translation with stamp, signature and certification note — recognised nationwide, and the everyday need in asylum and family-reunification cases before the BAMF and immigration offices. Confirming the authenticity of the foreign document itself follows a different logic.
Neither Eritrea nor Ethiopia is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention. Documents from both countries therefore usually require diplomatic legalisation rather than an apostille — the exact route depends on the document, the issuing country and the receiving authority. The FÜD does not issue apostilles or legalisations itself; we deliver the recognisable translation through FÜD's documented quality process; where the service is delivered under DIN EN ISO 17100, the required second-person revision is included and tell you which authority is competent for your case.
Use cases
Purpose, receiving authority and origin decide the tone, terminology and form of certification. Three common jobs — from the starting point to the result.
Asylum procedure
Careers in English
Family & authorities
Quote & price
We review volume, field, language direction and document type and name a binding fixed price. Standard certificates are usually a flat fee per document; longer texts are priced per standard line — certification on request, advance PDF and postal delivery included.
| Native Tigrinya professional translation | ✓included |
| Ge'ez script · origin & calendar correctly identified | ✓included |
| Certification by an authorised translator on request | ✓included |
| Advance PDF & postal delivery of the original | ✓included |
| Quality management & final check | ✓included |
Tigrinya is priced in language Group 3, from € 1.09 per standard line (55 characters incl. spaces); we name the exact amount after a brief review. How the price is made up →
Tigrinya documents & texts
We translate Tigrinya – German and Tigrinya – English – from certified records to specialist texts. Commonly requested from Tigrinya: ናይ ልደት ምስክር ወረቐት (birth certificate), ምስክር ወረቐት ናይ መርዓ (marriage certificate), ወረቐት መንነት (ID & passport).
FAQ
The BAMF could see that our documents were Eritrean Tigrinya, not Amharic. Names and dates matched our passports, and there was no follow-up query — which is exactly what had gone wrong before.
Y. Gebremariam · asylum procedure, Kassel
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Work with us
Our Tigrinya translations are produced by native-speaker specialists — the reason German authorities, universities and courts accept them without queries. Beyond the language itself, that rests on German at C2 level, a specialist field the translator can defend, and — for certified work — court authorisation. If you bring that combination rather than bilingualism alone, we work with Tigrinya translators employed and freelance, and the way in is also open through an internship.
The path
Native Tigrinya and a sure hand with the Ge'ez script are your starting capital; the market rewards what you build on top. German at C2 — the level at which you read a German ruling or medical report without hesitation — is the real gate, because certified work means rendering official German with precision, not just understanding it. Add a field you can defend (law, medicine, civil status, education) and the terminology that comes with it. That combination, not language alone, is what the BAMF or an administrative court actually relies on.
Why it holds up
For certified translations you apply to the competent Regional Court (Landgericht) to be authorised under state law. And Tigrinya is exacting, specialist work: a low-resource Ethio-Semitic language in the Ge'ez script, rarely seen outside specialist hands, with exact name transfer and calendar conversion that have to be right the first time. With continued migration from Eritrea the need stays high while authorised specialists are rare. Careful human work here is not nostalgia — it is what the receiving authority requires.
FÜD