The Bilen language lina or ብሊን b is spoken by the Bilen people in and around the city ofKeren in Eritrea and Kassala in eastern Sudan. It is the only Agaw language spoken in Eritrea. It is spoken by about 120,000 people.
Spelling of the name
"Blin" is the English spelling preferred by native speakers, but Bilin and Bilen are also commonly used. Bilin is the reference name arbitrarily used in the current initial English editions of ISO 639-3, but Blin is also listed as an equivalent name without preference. In the English list ofISO 639-2, Blin 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. The Ethnologue report lists Bilen as the preferred name, but also Bogo, Bogos, Bilayn, Bilin, Balen, Beleni, Belen, Bilein, Bileno, North Agaw as alternative names.
Phonology
It is not clear if Bilen has tone. It may have pitch accent as prominent syllables always have a high tone, but not all words have such a syllable.
Vowels
Consonants
Note: is found in loans, and the status of as a phoneme is uncertain. /r/ is typically realised as a tap when it is medial and a trill when it is in final position. Fallon notes intervocalic lenition, such as → ; syncope, as in the name of the language, → ; debuccalization with secondary articulation preserved, as in → 'mud for bricks'. Intriguingly, the ejectives have voiced 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,
See also: Ge'ez alphabet#Modifications for other languages A writing system for Bilen was first developed by missionaries who used the Ge'ez abugida and the first text was published in 1882. Although the Ge'ez script is usually used for Semitic languages, the phonemes of Bilen are very similar. The script therefore requires only a slight modification 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.
In 1985 the Eritrean People's Liberation Front decided to use the Latin script for Bilen and all other non-Semitic languages in Eritrea. This was largely a political decision: the Ge'ez script is associated with Christianity because of its liturgical use. The Latin alphabet is seen as being more neutral and secular. In 1993 the government set up a committee to standardize the Bilen language and the Latin-based orthography. "This overturned a 110-year tradition of writing Blin in Ethiopic script." As of 1997, the alphabetic order was: Also khw. Their values are similar to the IPA apart from the following:
