Tigray Province
The oldest inscriptions and texts referring to the population of the Aksumite kingdom and its neighbors do not know the term Tigray yet; they show an ethnic diversity, which has partially disappeared today. A variant of the term Tigray, first appears in a 10th-century gloss to "Cosmas Indicopleustes", i.e. after the Aksumite period; according to this source important groups of the region were the "" and the "" (i.e. the Agʿazi), the latter being the Aksumites. The toponym Tigray is probably originally ethnic, the "" then meant "the tribes near Adulis". They correspond to the Tigre groups living in the same area today; however, a historical identity between today's sub-groups and the 10th century groups cannot be supposed, as this could not explain the existence of the toponym "Tigray" for the Aksum-Adwa area. It should be concluded that Tigray groups lived along the main route between Aksum and the coast, and later separated, both ethnically and linguistically. There is no indication that the term Tigray could be explained through Ge'ez ("subdue"), with the meaning "the submitted" (in supposed contrast to the "free" Agaziyan linked with the rulers of Aksum), as this could not explain why the most important province took the name Tigray. The term might even not be Ethiosemetic and predate the Sabaen presence in Ethiopia. It is not excluded that the term ("Tekaru") from a list of southern peoples and countries allegedly subdued by Pharaonic Egypt in the 15th century BC may already be linked with the term Tigray; in this case it should mean a region within or in the vicinity of Punt.
Tigrinya language
The earliest written example of Tigrinya is a text of local laws found in the district of Logosarda, Debub Region (southern Eritrea) and Northern Ethiopia, which dates from the 13th century, during the time BahreNeGash (Eritrea's former known name) and Aksum were the same peoples' and inhabitants of the Tigray ethnic group of Abyssinia during the reign of the Zagwe Dynasty c. 900 A.D. - 13th century, before the official annexation between the Tigray and Tigrinya over 20 years ago.