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Beja (Bidhaawyeet or Tubdhaawi) is an Afroasiatic language of the Cushitic branch spoken on the western coast of the Red Sea by the Beja people. Its speakers inhabit parts of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea. In 2022 there were 2,550,000 Beja speakers in Sudan, and 121,000 Beja speakers in Eritrea according to Ethnologue.
Originally, the Beja did not speak Arabic, but the migration of the numerous Arab tribes of Juhaynah, Mudar, Rabi'a, and many more to the Beja areas contributed to the Arabization and Islamization of them.
Numbering about 1.9 million in the early 21st century, the Beja are descended from peoples who have lived in the area since 4000 bce or earlier. Some of the Beja speak a Cushitic language they call To Bedawi, and some speak Tigre; many also speak Arabic.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Beja (named beɖawije-t by the Beja people) is an unwritten language, traditionally classified as the sole member of the Northern branch of Cushitic of the Afroasiatic phylum.
Sep 20, 2012 · History: Many scholars believe the Beja to be derived from early Egyptians because of their language and physical features. They are the indigenous people of this area, and we first know of them in historical references in the Sixth Dynasty of ancient Egypt.
This paper presents the state of the art in our knowledge of the Beja language (North Cushitic) in 2006, with a focus on the most recent results in the domains of grammatical structures, lexicology, dialectology, sociolinguistics, phonetics,
Beja is spoken by about 1.2 million people in parts of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea. Beja is also known as Bedawi, Bedauye or To Bedawie. It is generally classified as a North Cushitic language, although some scholars believe it belongs to its own branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family.
