ZAGHAWA LANGUAGE AND HISTORY.

Culture: Zaghawa Language and History


By: Professor Issam Abdalla Ali, I seek refuge from the accursed devil with Allah. In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful, May prayer be upon our Prophet Mohamed and all his followers, Amen.

This is a study made about one of the Sudanese languages; the Zaghawa language. In fact we should start by giving an idea about the history of Zaghawa as a prologue to acquaint people with this language. Arabs had used the name “Zaghawa” to denote the African people who inhabit North Africa despite the fact that Zaghawa does not represent a single tribal unit. They, according to Al Mahallabi, constitute several nations. Zaghawa are multi-tribal people with separate habitats that are connected only through language and religion. This cultural, tribal and geographical diversity was accompanied by multiple names. In Sudan and Chad – the region inhabited by Zaghawa in the Chad-Sudan borders west of Kutum and up to Shari River in Chad – they are known as Zaghawa and Bidayat. Bidayat are a branch of Zaghawa; geographers first related the name because they are nomads and their land usually lies far from settled Zaghawa who enjoy more stability. The rest of Zaghawa practice both grazing and farming. By using those names, geographers speak about Zaghawa and Bidayat as two different tribes while they are in fact one and the same tribe. This is asserted by their language, customs and traditions. In Libya, Zaghawa are known as “Tibo” which is a collective name that includes “Zaghawa” and Gura’an”. The Gura’an are quite different from Zaghawa, at least in respect of language, despite the fact that there are branches and groups of Gura’an that belong to the Zaghawa tribe. They speak the same Zaghawa language, though quite limitedly. It is quite possible that Zaghawa might have descended from the Tibo. The Zaghawa of North Darfur is a mixture of Hamitic Tibo and Negroes with some ethnic relations with Libyans and Berbers. In the Niger regions, the Zaghawa are known as Zarawa, whereas Zaghawa themselves use “Beri” as their name which is there in their language. Zaghawa are quite similar to Arabs in some aspects and ethics such as generosity and courage. This, however, does not contradict with describing African as generous and courageous despite their preserving their African features and physical characteristics. Zaghawa are characterized by there being powerful fighters. This was related by many authors who wrote about them, such as Wahab Ibn Al Monabbih. This might be related to the environment in which they live or that from which they came. It is an environment of a semi-desert climate where the rainfall ranges between 45-95 mm per annum. The northern parts of this region are almost desert and are devoid of any form of life apart from the fringe of the valley known as “Wadi Hower” in the middle of the desert region. The thick-forested valleys traverse the southern parts of this region and rich pasture lands, which can hold all types of cattle, camels and goats. This region is the cause for conflicts between Zaghawa and the neighbouring tribes. Zaghawa tribe is one of the African tribes that played a major role in establishing African History in general and history of Islam in Africa in particular. They were the founders of Kanam State as some historians had pointed saying “As for Sudan, they had many kingdoms the first of which is that of Zaghawa, they inhabit a place known as Kanam”. This was Wahab Ibn Al Monabbih. It is to be noticed that there is some historic confusion, may be for many reasons, between the Zaghawa and Kanam kingdoms especially among some geographers such as Al Idrisi who differentiated between Kanam and the Zaghawa kingdom. In fact it is not like that, it is most probable that Zaghawa were the first people among those around Chad that embraced Islam. They had migrated into this region round about the eighth century. They played a major role in spreading Islam in those regions. According to each of Oliver and John Feed the spread of Islam in the region lying east of the Hausa land and west Darfur was due to several factors. The most important of these is the flow of the desert tribes including Berbers, Zaghawa, Tawarig and Arabs who gained control at first over the region since their first coming in the eighth century, and that was at the expense of the farmers settling there. It is said that those settling farmers were the Shawa people who were there before the coming of the Zaghawa who controlled that area until their state started to weaken in 1097. The Zaghawa state started to disintegrate during the eleventh century due to the entry of “Seifin” and their gaining access to power in the Kanam kingdom. That was followed by the displacement of Zaghawa eastwards until they settled in their present region within the Sudanese borders. At the same time the Islamic Barno Empire was established on the Western coast of Lake Chad. Beriemi is considered to be the first Zaghawa king over Kanam, while the first Muslim Zaghawa king was Mai Omi who ruled towards the end of the eleventh century. Some sources state that Mai Omi is from Barno. On another part Kanam was known as a district inhabited by peaceful farmers. It was not referred to as a kingdom except after being ruled by Zaghawa due to the fact that the language spoken there at that time was the Zaghawa language, which was used as an everyday language between all the groups that inhabit that area. However, Arabic language was also used officially in state offices due to the lack of script for Zaghawa language. This is just an introduction through which we intend to delve into our main topic: Zaghawa language; we have seen how the Kanam kingdom was called Zaghawa kingdom because the Zaghawa language was used there as we pointed out before. That language was commonly used by all the tribal groups that inhabited Kanam. It does not contradict with the presence of other tribal groups than Zaghawa in that region, but it was the Zaghawa who had influence and control at that time, and hence, the role of Zaghawa and their effect on that region. There was a main reason, however, for the Zaghawa language failure to spread and to be used as a written language. That was the absence of a script for it at that time. It was consequently replaced by Arabic language because the latter is a written language. There was, obviously, no language other than Arabic in those regions at that time. Another point about this issue is that those people were Muslims and had therefore adopted Arabic language because it is the language of Islam. It was found later on that the Zaghawa language was a “verbal” language for everyday life communication and was never written. After controlling Kanam, Zaghawa moved eastwards and were known by the same name all over Sudan and Chad. Those who settled in Libya are known as Tibo. Nobody ever dealt with the issue of adopting a written script for this language until 1986. It was then that Ustaz Adam Abdalla Issa, better known as Adam Tajir tried to arrive at a written script by using symbols derived from the signs used by Zaghawa to brand their cattle. This was published by “Alwan” daily Arabic newspaper. He then developed those symbols and wrote a book in which he included his proposed symbols. He also wrote some literary texts of poetry, proverbs and short stories in his new symbols. The total number of symbols amounted to forty. However, there were some symbols, which do not exist in Zaghawa language. Those symbols might be useful to write some vowels that are not present in Arabic language. Some of them concerned Arabic language such as the “dhad, sad, zai and ta’a”. Half of those symbols were just vowel signs. Those symbols might be useful to write some vowels that are not present in Arabic language, but from a practical point of view and at this particular time that might not be possible. Consequently we find that the founder of this idea had discarded those symbols. I personally had contributed in this field. I made a research under the title, “Writing Zaghawa language in Arabic scripts.” I depended on the Arabic symbols proposed by the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization for writing the Zaghawa language. They were as follows: International Symbol IESCO Symbol ? b t dz d r f g ng s sh k h n N L M W They amount to a total of (18) Zaghawa symbols. Here are some examples of Zaghawa language written in international symbols and in Arabic letters Peace on you! Lera You are welcome! Come in! ? Ar kajaw The Zaghawa are many tribes in each of Sudan, Chad and Libya Bari si agoy Sudanka y chatk y kra Libak y The old letters which were proposed by Ustaz Adam Tajir were replaced by the new symbols; those made by the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. The aim behind this was to write Islamic nations language in Arabic script so as to cope with those nations Islamic culture. According to a report by Yassa’a Projtec in (2000) all Zaghawa are Muslims. A Christian project that was prepared in (2000) also pointed out that Zaghawa in all countries of Sudan, Niger and Libya do not include any Christian, pagan or anyone of any religion other than Islam. The Zaghawa language is classified within the Tibo dialects, which is a family of languages in the desert region. This family includes several languages with the Zaghawa language among them. Within the Zaghawa language group there are the Zawa and Barti languages, which are almost degenerate. Barti are tribes that are found in North Africa, presently they speak Arabic and do not have another language apart form it and Zaghawa language. As for the linguistic classification within Sudan on a geographical basis, Zaghawa language falls within the Darfur language group, which includes each of Zaghawa, Maidoub, Messalit and Fur languages. It should be noted, though, that the Maidoub language is of a Nubian origin and does not belong to the same family of Zaghawa language. Desert languages do not include the binary or gender forms in their grammar, In addition to that they tend to put the object before the “subject” in most cases. In Zaghawa language they do not differentiate between male and female, they use the same singular form of tense for one, two or more; for male or female. In spite of that we find that there is a clear effect by Arabic language on Zaghawa language. This is due to the fact that Arabic culture affected all African languages particularly among Muslim nations through the use of Arabic in all the Islamic religious rites. This effect is quite obvious in the Zaghawa vocabulary. All religious and all Islamic cultural terms are pronounced in Arabic. They use the tense “Feki”, “Imam”, and “Muazzin” in Arabic, they do not have equivalent terms in their own language. Being Muslims, Zaghawa use these terms quite easily and fluently. They also speak Arabic beside their original language. They never thought of using alternative terms. Arabic language for Zaghawa had become a language of communication with others. They are not an isolated community, their communications with other nations is done through the use of Arabic language. We can, therefore, conclude that Arabic language represents an important factor in Zaghawa land. Any other language cannot replace it even if that was Zaghawa language itself. It will always expand and spread to an extent that might bring the role of Zaghawa language in communication to an end. This indicates that there are some areas in Zaghawa land where individuals do not speak Zaghawa language. They speak Arabic instead. For example, the Zaghawa who live in Kujimar area in Kordofan had lost their mastery over Zaghawa language and it is only Arabic that they speak. In addition to that there are other areas in Zaghawa land where most people speak Arabic beside their original Zaghawa language. The role of Arabic language applies also to other languages. This is hat we can state as a summary for the issue of Zaghawa language.