| Ababda | |
|---|---|
| Bedouin tribe | |
 Bedouin of Ababda | |
| Ethnicity | Arab[1] orBeja[2] |
| Location | EasternEgypt andSudan |
| Descended from | Zubayr ibn al-Awwam |
| Population | 250,000+[3] |
| Language | Arabic |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
TheAbabda (Arabic:العبابدة,romanized: al-ʿabābdah orArabic:العبّادي,romanized: al-ʿabbādī) are anArab[1] orBeja[2]tribe[4] in easternEgypt andSudan. Historically, most wereBedouins living in the area between theNile and theRed Sea, with some settling along the trade route linkingKorosko withAbu Hamad. Numerous traveler accounts from the nineteenth century report that some Ababda at that time still spokeBeja or a language of their own, hence many secondary sources consider the Ababda to be aBeja subtribe. Most Ababda now speak Arabic and identify as an Arab tribe from theHijaz. The Ababda have a total population of over 250,000 people.[5]
Ababda tribal origin narratives identify them as anArab people from theHijaz, descended fromZubayr ibn al-Awwam (possibly through his sonAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr) following theMuslim conquest of Egypt.[1][6]
Many published sources in Western languages identify the Ababda as a subtribe of theBeja, or as descendants of speakers of a Cushitic language.[2][7]
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Today, virtually all Ababda communities speak Arabic. There is no oral tradition of having spoken any other language prior to Arabic, in keeping with Ababda Arab origin narratives.[8]
In a 1996 study, Rudolf de Jong found that the Ababda dialect of Arabic was quite similar to that of theShukriya people of the Sudan, and concluded that it was an extension of the northern Sudanese dialect area.[9]
Alfred von Kremer reported in 1863 that the Ababda had developed an Arabic-basedthieves' cant that only they understood.[10]
There is rich evidence confirming that as late as the second half of the 19th century the Ababda were bilingual in Arabic and aBeja language that was either identical or closely related toBisharin.[11] A distinct language being spoken by the Ababda has been reported by several early travellers, either identified as Beja or left without further description. In around 1770 theScottish travellerJames Bruce claimed that they spoke the "Barabra" language, Nubian.[12] At the turn of the 19th century, during theFrench campaign in Egypt and Syria, the engineer Dubois-Aymé wrote that the Ababda understood Arabic, but still spoke a language of their own.[13] In the 1820sEduard Rüppell briefly stated that the Ababda spoke their own, seemingly non-Arabic language.[14] A similar opinion was written byPierre Trémaux after his journey in Sudan in the late 1840s.[15]
John Lewis Burckhardt reported that in 1813 those Ababda who co-resided with theBishari tribe spokeBeja.[16] Alfred von Kremer believed them to be native Beja-speakers and was told that the Ababda were bilingual in Arabic, which they spoke with a heavy accent. Those who resided with the Nubians spokeKenzi.[17]Robert Hartmann, who visited the country in 1859/60, noted that the vast majority of the Ababda now spoke Arabic. However, in the past they used to speak a Beja dialect that was now, as he was told, solely restricted to a few nomadic families roaming theEastern Desert. He believed that they abandoned their language in favour of Arabic due to their close contact with other arabophone tribes.[18] The Swedish linguist Herman Almkvist, writing in 1881, counted the Ababda to the Beja and noted that most had discarded the Beja language, supposedly identical to the Bishari dialect, in favour of Arabic, although "quite a lot" were still capable of understanding and even talking Beja. Bishari informants told him that in the past, the Bishari and Ababda were the same people.[19]Joseph Russegger, who visited the country around 1840, noted that the Ababda spoke their own language, although he added that it was heavily mixed with Arabic. He believed it to be a "Nubian Bedouin" language and implied that this language, and the Ababda customs and appearance in general, is similar to that of the Bishari.[20] TravellerBayard Taylor wrote in 1856 that the Ababda spoke a language different from that of the Bishari, although it "probably sprang from the same original stock."[21] The FrenchOrientalist Eusèbe de Salle concluded in 1840, after attending a Beja conversation between Ababda and Bishari, that both understood each other reasonably well, but that the Ababda "definitely" had a language of their own.[22] The physicianCarl Benjamin Klunzinger wrote in 1878 that the Ababda would always speak Arabic while conversing with strangers, avoiding to speak their own language which he thought was a mixture of Arabic and Beja.[23]