Talk:Ababda people

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The article needs to explain first of all whether or not these people are Arabs. Gringo300 19:43, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

They're a cushitic speaking group closely related to groups like Bejas, Ethio-Semites, Agaws, Somalis, Oromos etc. You can culturally consider them "Arabized" but in the case of being real Arabs of the Arabian peninsula- they're not. Their origin lies more or less in Northeast Africa. Awale-Abdi (talk) 13:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure why "first of all" that's what the article needs to do. They are not a group that speaks a Cushitic language. Some history that is mostly speculative holds that their ancestors spoke Beja, but lost the language through Arabization. There's no actual historical record of their speaking Beja or any other Cushitic language. They share many cultural practices with Bishaari people. Pathawi (talk) 11:28, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Jidda / Jedda/Jeddah

am changing the Ababda's point of destination from "Jedda" (which links to an Australian movie) to "Jeddah" (a nearby Saudi Arabian city). I suppose Jiddah (an island in the Persian Gulf) is also a possiblity, but it seems unlikely. I haven't checked any references for this, but it looks like a simple typo... — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMesser (talk • contribs) 00:21, 20 February 2011 (UTC) Sorry about forgetting to sign... SMesser (talk) 00:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

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Not Beja

Hello, all. I just made some modifications to the page removing identifications of Ababda people as Beja. I've done linguistic fieldwork in the area, know many, many Bishaari and other Beja people and quite a few Ababdahs, and I'm quite certain that at least at present, few if any Ababadahs consider themselves Beja; Bishaari people consider themselves to have a special shared history with the Ababda (intermarriages are not uncommon), but do not consider the Ababdah Beja. I've included one published source that counters the claim that the Ababdah are Beja, but it's unfortunately in Arabic. The claim is quite common in English-language sources, but they're all secondary and stem from low-quality speculative colonial anthropology. If anyone's got a different opinion about how to handle this, I'd love to discuss it. Pathawi (talk) 20:13, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

The most recent edit (which I reverted) accused this viewpoint of Sudanese wishful thinking. I'm not Sudanese, & this isn't wishful thinking: I'm a non-Arab American who does research on the Beja language. I've spent a lot of time in Egypt with Bishaari people, and I incidentally have quite a lot of Ababdah acquaintances. I work on language revitalisation, & I think I can legitimately be considered an opponent of عروبة & the previous Sudanese regime's مشروع حضارى. Nor is that an accurate description of the source in question: Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Ḍirār was a proud Beja historian.

There is a special relationship between the Bishaari, Ababdah, and Rasha'idah tribes. Beja tribes avoid & work out disputes thru a land tenure, dispute resolution, & ethical system called Ooslif. In the Halayib Triangle, the Ababdah & Rasha'idah have entered into a special dispute resolution relationship with the Bishaari. Moreover, while marriage outside of the Beja is relatively rare (tho not unheard of) in general, marriage between Ababdah & Bishaari families is actually fairly common. In Aswan, the Bishaari community regularly uses the Ababdah Community Centre for wakes & weddings. This special relationship appears to go back at least two centuries. & yet: I know no Bishaari person who considers the Ababdah Beja. I have talked with several Ababdah people about the Beja, & none have themselves claimed to be Beja. I'm not proposing that my experience of Bishaari & Ababdah community is a valid source for Wikipedia: We have to dry on reliable sources.

With regard to the sources at question: Wikipedia is not meant to reflect independent research. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Ḍirār, writing as a historian in the latter half of the twentieth century is clearly a better source by Wikipedia standards than a traveler's report from the mid-19th century that works from that period's racial science. Of course, one could ditch Barnim & instead use secondary sources to create an account that the Ababdah are "really" Beja, & that they formerly spoke the Beja language. I think that a specialist in the area should be preferred over encyclopædias, but sure: There are sources that should be considered reliable by Wikipedia standards that counter the account I've given above. We then have opposing secondary sources. I propose the following solution:

• An Origin section that provides both the Ababdah narrative of origin from a Hijazi tribe (there are several published sources for this), the Western traveler-derived identification of the Ababdah as a Arabized Beja, & historian Andrew Paul's account that offers a more complicated perspective on Ababdah origins.
• A Language section that states that all historical reports are of Arabic-speaking Ababdah people, but that some traveler reports indicated that some Ababdah people spoke Beja: Burckhardt said that those who settled with Bishaari people learned Beja, while Barnim said that there was said to be an Ababdah Beja dialect spoken by some nomads.

This works for me. Does it work for other editors? Pathawi (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@user:Pathawi Virtually all Sudanese genealogies justifying an Arab origin are reglion-driven fabrications from the 18th century. Claims of Arab origin are, except for the Rashaida, almost completely unfounded. See Spaulding's "The Chronology of Sudanese Arabic Genealogical Tradition". Also, I doubt that you have even read Robert Hartmann, a thorough researcher and supporter of the African origin of much of the Sudanese people, a very contrasting view to your "period's racial science" and Orientalism. Furthermore, 19th century artwork (like the one you deleted) clearly depicts the Ababda in the typical Beja fashion. It's quite obvious (and has already been pointed out by Hartmann) that the Ababda, living along the strategic Korosko road, adopted Arabic to faciliate trade. LeGabrie(talk) 17:50, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm unclear as to why you think that what you think I've read is relevant. I doubt you've read Ḍirār's history, ʕabd-ul-Wahāb ʕabd-ul-Hamīd ʕumar's history of the Beja, or any grammar of Tubdhaawi. That doesn't matter. Wikipedia isn't a pissing contest. I have not read Hartmann in full, but before reverting your edits I did in fact read the section you cited, pp 228–233. What I see is the following:

• He acknowledges: „Auch diese gelten den meisten Reisebeschreibern als Ḥiġâz-Araber. Sie selbst prahlen mit einer solchen, angemassten, Herkunft und behaupten, von dem berühmten Oberhaupte der Qurêśiten abzustammen.‟
• He then asserts: „Unzweifelhaft sind die 'Abâbdeh ein äthiopisches, den Beśarîn ähnliches Volk.‟ The basis for this is unclear. I don't know what "thorough research" supports this. & I don't know what the assertion of the existence of an "ætheopic people" is if it's not nineteenth century racial science.
• Finally, we get this sentence (actually appears earlier in this ¶ on p 230), which is key for me: „Obwohl sie grössentheils die arabische Sprache angenommen haben und obgleich es 'Abâbdeh-Familien giebt, die, am Nilufer in festen Wohnsitzen lebend, jetzt nur arabisch reden, so existirt doch noch ein 'Agêm-'Abbâdi, d.h. ein Abâbdeh-Welsch, welches ein Dialekt des Beġawi sein und noch bei manchen Wanderfamilien zwischen Nil und rothem Meere geredet werden soll.‟ So this is something our writer has heard of, but does not have experience of.
• He then notes: „In der Farbe gleiche diese Leute eher den Berâbra, als de Beśarîn, indem es mehr dunkelhäutige, schwärlichbraune Individuen unter ihnen giebt, als bei letzteren. Von Gestalt sind sie derb, muskulös und wohlproportionirt, ihr Züge erscheinen jedoch weniger scharf, als die Beśarîn, gleichen eher denen der alten Egypter, was wohl davon herrühren mag, dass sie sich von jeher häufiger mit Egyptern, Berâbra, auch eingewanderten Arabern vermischt, als ihre anderen Beĝa-Verwandten.‟ I'll come back to this in a moment.

The above underscores why this is not a reliable source comparable to comparative textual & oral research like Ḍirār's: The writer notes a local history, but then rejects it in favour of assertions that seem rooted in phenotype. But this is also, as I already conceded, somewhat beside the point: One could easily find secondary sources of the sort our intellectual community deems "reliable" that support the view that the Ababdah were "originally" (or more meaningfully formerly) "Beja".

I think we have actually rather different interests here: It seems to me that your interest is in disrupting unjustifiable histories of the Arab origin of African peoples. My interest is actually in the historical specificity of Tubdhaawi. I'm very well aware of the fictitiousness of many African Arab genealogies, and I get your concern. It's valid. But if you've read Spaulding, then surely you understand the claim he's drawing from Anderson about the constructedness of ethnicity. Such identifications are always ideological. As a researcher working on the history of the Beja language, I'm interested in what remnants of older versions of the language are present in contemporary speech practice in speech communities that used to speak Beja. I have no doubt that the Ababdah aren't some "pure" "Arab" stock descended directly from the Ḥijāz. The implausibility of a particular oral history of the Ababdah is not actually support for a poorly evidenced claim for a different specific origin. What I object to is two things:

1. The identification of the Ababdah as "Beja." Ethnicity is always constructed, as Spaulding & Anderson note. This is not an ethnic identifier that Ababdah people employ, & those who do employ it do not include the Ababdah.
2. The assertion that Ababdah people used to speak the Beja language. I think that it's entirely plausible that some group of people who identified as Ababdah a couple hundred years ago spoke Beja, but I don't think this is actually substantiated by the historical record. The best we've got is the Barnim/Hartmann hearsay & the report of 19th century European explorers like Burckhardt that some Ababdah people who settled with Bishaaris spoke Beja. This is the result of bad research, including the employment of 19th century traveler hearsay as 20th century encyclopædic fact. If a past group that identified as the Ababdah spoke a language we would identify as Beja, the research has not yet been done to demonstrate it.

And yet… it's not hard to find Western secondary sources that assert that the Ababdah were Beja and that they used to speak Beja. My proposal, above, is to include multiple viewpoints from conflicting secondary sources in both an Origins section and a Languages section, and not to assert that the Ababdah are Beja in the lead ¶. My best guess is that an account of complex mixing like that of Barnim/Hartmann (final bullet above) & Paul is most plausible.

Let's nix the insults & the haughtiness. Does this solution work for you? Pathawi (talk) 20:09, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

user:Pathawi But is your source which apparently stated that there is no evidence for a pre-Arabic language that much more reliable? Robert Hartmann is, after all, not the only European traveller to have mentioned the non-Arabic language of the Ababde (Joseph Russegger 1943, p. 379, Eduard Rüppell 1829, p. 212). When "European secondary sources" (which almost sounds like they are unreliable just because they are European) state that the Ababde are Beja or, more precisely, Arabized Beja they have every reason to write so. This has to be elaborated in the article and should also be addressed in the lead, like "there is evidence that before the adoption of Arabic, the Ababda used to speak their own Beja language". Also, may I ask why you deleted my image? LeGabrie (talk) 21:03, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Like I said: I don't care about the images. I'm fine with them. I deleted them incidentally in restoring an older version. You can restore them without any objection from me. (I will say: I like including both older & modern photographs. Ababdah people still exist, after all. But I had no objection to your images.)

The sources you're citing are primary—not secondary. That's one key problem. Primary sources can be useful, but in general secondary sources for Wikipedia are preferred. But again: We can find this material in secondary sources (you're just not presenting them). My problem with the European sources isn't that they're unreliable because they're European, & I'm fairly certain that that's not what I said. They're unreliable because they draw on primary sources uncritically: Traveler accounts on this matter have countered what local people have to say about themselves without any substantive evidence. This is a key problem in handling explorer texts well. Note your primary sources, here: Barnim/Hartmann's wording makes it clear that whichever of the two wrote those words was referencing hearsay. Russegger actually does not identify the Ababdah language with Beja in his footnote, but rather says that it's probably a "Nubian" language (of course, as he uses the term, that could mean Beja, but he doesn't say that). Rüppell notes that the speech of the Ababdahs is distinct from that of the Arabs of the Ḥijāz & Najd, but he doesn't identify it with Beja. (In fact, from his wording, it's not obvious to me that he's talking about something that's not an Arabic dialect.) In all of these, a very big problem is that we have no information about how these explorers got their information. Did they speak with Ababdah people? Are they reporting things that they heard in Arabic from others? (Far more likely.) Contrast these with, for example, Burckhardt or Seetzen, who have left us descriptions (& often names in the latter case) of who they got their info from.

I do think Ḍirār is more reliable, as he draws on European accounts, Arab accounts, & oral histories from Eastern Sudan. If you've got access, you should read it. (If you don't have access, let me know.) BUT AGAIN: We could find the claim you're championing in secondary sources. This is why I'm in favour of including contrasting perspectives: The research behind one side is shoddy, but it's from the kind of sources our intellectual community has agreed are reliable, so it would be inconsistent to exclude it.

I object to including the wording you propose in the lead. I would support: "Some traveler accounts from the nineteenth century report that some Ababdah at that time spoke Beja or a language of their own. Most Ababdah then as now spoke Arabic, and identified as an Arab tribe from the Hijaz." Pathawi (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

• No one said that 19th-century travelogues are beyond doubt. Yet, they are more than enough proof to disregard the claim that there "is no direct documentary evidence that they historically spoke a language other than Arabic." I would support your lead. The "language" section still needs some work though. LeGabrie (talk) 22:48, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

& no one ever said anyone said that. ;) I think we can confidently say that nineteenth century traveler reports indicate that many Ababdah people who lived with Bishaaris spoke Beja. I think it is likely that some portion of Ababdah ancestry includes Beja-speakers, but that we actually do not have any real documentary evidence for that. Note that of the three primary sources you provided, none were actual attestations of real Ababdah speech. Only one of the three explicitly linked the Ababdah with Beja peoples, & that was worded as hearsay. I've been doing research on 19th century documentation of Beja, & most people would be amazed by just how much these explorers got wrong, & how much is still learnable thru these texts. Seetzen, for example, in his list (by far the longest) includes full sentences of Arabic & Tigre as Beja lexical items. This makes the document much more interesting, as you begin to get a sense of what's going on in this interaction, but work on materials like this takes real critical care.

In any case, I'm glad we have a path to move forward on. & I agree on the language section: I just threw what we already had down there. Pathawi (talk) 23:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good. Perhaps I was a bit too harsh. When I last edited articles about Sudanese tribes (Shaigiya tribe & Ja'alin tribe) it resulted in a brutal edit-war lasting for months. LeGabrie (talk) 23:24, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Recent Rollback: Arab or not…

I've just removed two sets of edits. I wanted to explain my reasoning. A series of IP edits added sources, wording apparently from those sources, & replaced one of the photos. One of the sources was a colonial era administrative document, & should not be taken as supplanting information from contemporary scholarly research. The description of the photo was not supported by the source it was drawn from: The source does not identify the people in that photo as Ababdah. It is possible that there was good information removed with the bad, here: I haven't checked the Arabic-language Sudanese history, but I will. I also removed a set of edits by user Applodion which removed a few reliable sources with the assertion that the Ababdah are not an Arab tribe.

The wording of this article probably should not assert that the Ababdah are or are not an "Arab tribe". The linkage between ethnicity, language, land, & origin is a modern confluence from the European nationalist context. For more than a millennium, the idea of Arabness has not fit this model well. Rather than saying that the Ababdah are or are not Arabs, the article ought to reflect reliable sources & note both how Ababah understand & describe themselves, & what scholars have to say about their origins. We should only be removing sources if they're not reliable, not secondary, or not relevant. Pathawi (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

@Pathawi: You are making a very good point. My hard approach in fully reverting the IP was mainly related to the fact that they have been trying to allege that several Sudanese ethnic groups are "pure" Arabs (despite lots of academic evidence to the contrary), often misinterpreting sources and framing references outlining these tribes' regional descent as being just "some" or "minority" views.
Could you perhaps also take a look at other articles edited by these IPs, such as Kawahla people and Danagla? Applodion (talk) 22:30, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Applodion: Multiple of the Kawahla people edits were unsupported by the sources cited. I reverted to the prior version. Unfortunately, that version is also pretty bad. The article needs some work! The Danagla case looks more complicated to me. I will check it out tho. Pathawi (talk) 23:57, 12 September 2022 (UTC)