History of Eritrea: Encyclopedia II - History of Eritrea - Early history

History of Eritrea - Early history

Central areas of Eritrea and most tribes in today's northern Ethiopia share a common background in the kingdom of Axum of the first millennium, and in its Oriental-Orthodox christian church, Tewahedos, as well as in its Ge'ez language. Around 90% of today Eritreans speak languages (Tigrinya and Tigre) that are closely related to the now-extinct Geez language - as do Tigrinya-speakers in northern Ethiopia (and Amharic-speakers of Ethiopia are Ethiopian Semitics too, though Amharic is a bit more distant in its kinship to Geez, Tigre and Tigrinya).

Eritrea's highlands tended to be part of Ethiopian feudal politics in most of the second millennium. Various sorts of warlords of Tigray held sway also in parts of today Eritrea, as they ruled parts of today northern Ethiopia. However, there also existed traditions of self-rule of districts that now are in Eritrea, notably the so-called republic of Hamasien. A reader should understand that those times were the era of feudalism, and nation-states were unknown, as borders of feudal possessions changed rather rapidly.

Eritrean areas were no more saved from Muslim invasions than Ethiopia, either. Particularly the coastline and other lowlands received conquerors, islamization and also speakers of the Arab language.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early history", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki