The Bilen language ብሊና b ɨ lina or ብሊን b ɨ lin is spoken by the Bilen people in and around the city of Keren in Eritrea. It is the only Agaw Central Cushitic language spoken in Eritrea. It is spoken by aboutpeople. Bilin is the reference name arbitrarily used in the current initial English editions of ISObut Blin is also listed as an equivalent name without preference.
In the English list of ISOBlin is listed in first position in both English and French lists, when Bilin is listed as an alternate name in the English list, and Bilen is the alternate name in the French list. It is not clear if Bilen has tone.
It may have pitch accent Fallon as prominent syllables always have a high tone, but not all words have such a syllable. Intriguingly, the ejectives have bilen i höve allophones, which according to Fallon "provides an important empirical precedent" for one of the more criticized aspects of the glottalic theory of Indo-European.
For example. A writing system for Bilen was first developed by missionaries who used the Geʽez abugida and the first text was published in Although the Geʽez script is usually used for Semitic languagesthe phonemes of Bilen are very similar 7 vowels, labiovelar and ejective consonants.
The script therefore requires only a slight modification the addition of consonants for ŋ and ŋʷ to make it suitable for Bilen. Some of the additional symbols required to write Bilen with this script are in the "Ethiopic Extended" Unicode range rather than the "Ethiopic" range.
This was largely a political decision: the Geʽez script is associated with Christianity because of its liturgical use. The Latin alphabet is seen as being more neutral and secular. In the government set up a committee to standardize the Bilen language and the Latin-based orthography.
Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. Cushitic language spoken in East Africa. Language family. Writing system. This article contains Ethiopic text.