Tigrinya is a member of the Ethiopic branch of Semitic languages spoken mainly in the Tigre region of Ethiopia, and in Central Eritrea. In 2007 there were about 4.4 milion speakers of Tigrinya, and there were 3.1 million Tigrinya speakers in Eritrea in 2016. In 1994 there were about 10,000 speakers of Tigrinya in Israel. There are also communities of Tigrinya speakers in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Germany, Italy the UK, Canada and in other countries.