There is an essay, authored by Zeray W. A. Teklay, that offers a comprehensive and critical examination of the historical, linguistic, and cultural geography of Tigray. Focusing particularly on the western, northwestern, and southern districts of today’s Tigray region, such as Wolkait, Tsegede, Kafta, Tselemti, and Raya-Azebo, the well-researched essay challenges wishful political narratives that detach these territories from their long-standing Tigrinya ethno-linguistic context.
Drawing on a wide range of 19th- and 20th-century scholarly sources, including historical geography, linguistic surveys, ethnography, colonial administrative records, and cartographic evidence, the essay demonstrates that these areas have consistently been identified as part of a coherent Tigrinya-speaking cultural sphere. It shows how repeated imperial, colonial, and post-colonial administrative reconfigurations fragmented this territory on paper, while failing to alter the deeper realities of language, culture, and settlement.
A central argument of the study is the need to distinguish clearly between administrative boundaries, which are political and mutable, and ethno-linguistic territories, which are shaped by long-term human settlement, language use, and cultural continuity. Through this lens, the essay exposes how politically motivated boundary changes, such as the detachment of western and southern Tigrinya-speaking districts to Begemder or Wollo, obscured, rather than reflected, social and linguistic realities.
The work also clarifies enduring terminological confusions between Tigrinya, Tigray, and Tigre, highlighting how these misunderstandings have been instrumentalised in contemporary territorial disputes. It underscores that Tigrinya is the language of Christian highland populations spanning northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and that historic provinces never encompassed all speakers of a given language, just as “Amhara proper” never included all Amharic speakers.
Importantly, the essay critically engages with the wrong claims that the Tekezze River historically marked a fixed ethno-linguistic boundary between Tigrinya and Amharic-speaking areas. By examining historical maps, linguistic data, and administrative records, it demonstrates that such claims rely on selective readings of history and ignore extensive evidence of Tigrinya-speaking communities south and west of the river.
Finally, the essay situates these compilations within the constitutional framework of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE), which defines regional states primarily on ethno-linguistic criteria rather than inherited imperial boundaries. While acknowledging the limitations of post-1991 arrangements, the essay argues that the Tigray Regional State represents a partial, evidence-based attempt to realign political borders with ethno-linguistic realities.
The 115-page essay provides a rigorous, multi-disciplinary foundation for understanding the historical roots of contemporary territorial disputes in Ethiopia. It invites readers to move beyond slogans and administrative myths and to engage seriously with language, culture, history, and constitutional principles as the basis for political belonging and regional identity.
A PDF version of the full essay will be published soon, here on our website.