Language
The Beja speak Beja or To Bedawie, an Afro-Asiatic language usually classified as Cushitic, but sometimes seen as an independent branch. The French linguist Didier Morin (2001) has made an attempt to bridge the gap between Beja and another branch of Cushitic, namely Lowland East Cushitic languages and in particular Afar and Saho, the linguistic hypothesis being historically grounded on the fact that the three languages where once geographically contiguous. Most Beja speak the Beja language, however certain sub-clans do not, the Beni Amers for instance speak a variety of Tigre, while most of the Halengas speak Arabic.
Even though the influence of Arabic cannot be denied, Beja speakers do not consider that their language is today an endangered language. The very facts that the highest moral and cultural values of this society are in one way or the other linked to their expression in Beja, that Beja poetry is still highly praised, and that the claims over the Beja land are only valid when expressed in Beja, are very strong social factors in favour of its preservation. True enough Arabic is considered as the language of modernity, but it is also very low in the scale of Beja cultural values as it is a means of transgressing social prohibitions. Beja is still the prestigious language for most of its speakers because it conforms to the ethical values of the community.
Read more about this topic: Beja People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Both the Moral Majority, who are recycling medieval language to explain AIDS, and those ultra-leftists who attribute AIDS to some sort of conspiracy, have a clearly political analysis of the epidemic. But even if one attributes its cause to a microorganism rather than the wrath of God, or the workings of the CIA, it is clear that the way in which AIDS has been perceived, conceptualized, imagined, researched and financed makes this the most political of diseases.”
—Dennis Altman (b. 1943)
“Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Language is filled
with words for deprivation
images so familiar
it is hard to crack language open
into that other country
the country of being.”
—Susan Griffin (b. 1943)