The change came because of the Tigrinya translation of the Bible in 1961. That's how some of our traditional priests described Tigrinya when they learned that the Bible was about to be translated into Tigrinya by the Swedish Evangelical Mission in 1890s. I remember one day a Frenchman wondering how Moliere's works such as Les Precieuses Ridicules and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme could ever be translated into Tigrinya, an obscure African language. I asked him to be more precise. Moliere's language is too lofty and refined to be translated into your language, he said without shame.
Some people have special transplanted nerves.
The people who translated the Bible into Tigrinya did it with love and sacrifice. This doesn't mean that it was fun to do the job at the time. At times it became so enervating that one of the translators preferred to preach to the Oromos in southern Ethiopia than having to continue with the grueling undertaking of Bible translation. He was burned alive as he tried to save his mules in a blazing stable a thousand miles away from home. His colleagues continued with the Bible and with Mezmur Selam, a church hymnbook in Tigrinya of unsurpassed beauty.