History
What is mentioned in history books about the Zaghawa people is largely an important source for knowing the temporal and spatial boundaries of the history and geography of the population group that has been associated with this name in the past and present. Information contained in history confirms that the Zaghawa are an ancient population group of a wide geographical area extending from the Nile in the east to the areas of the Lake Chad Basin in the west and north to the Fezzan region in Libya. Ptolemy mentioned them centuries before Christ among the peoples of the Nile, and they were also mentioned in the poems of the poet Abu Al-Ala Al-Maarri in the tenth century AD, but he did not give an accurate definition of the areas they inhabited.
From the beginning of the Middle Ages until the beginning of the twentieth century, important historical information was available about the Zaghawa from the writings of Arab and Western geographers and historians about their kingdoms in West and Central Africa, known as the Kingdom of Kanem-Borno. Some history writers also mentioned about the relationship of the Zaghawa with the ancient Kingdom of Meroe and their migration to the West after the collapse of this kingdom. Their great role in spreading Sudanese civilization, including the anthropologist EVA L.R. Meyerowitz.
In modern history, the name Zaghawa has been associated with an ethnic group that existed in a limited geographical area in Sudan and Chad, and their presence in Sudan is concentrated at the present time in the far northwestern region of Darfur and in the northeastern regions of the state of Chad. They have been present in this region of Sudan for centuries, with tribes that share borders with them, such as the Berti, the Ziadiya, the Maidub, the Beni Hussein, the Tanjur, and the Qamar. In Chad, it shares borders with Al-Qaraan in the far north of Chad, Al-Barqou in the Ouaddai region, Al-Tama in Gereida, and Al-Dajo in Goz Beida. The Zaghawa people today constitute a large ethnic group divided into about four large groups, each of which serves as a tribe. The groups are known as Waqi, Tuba (Bediyat), Kubra, and Drung. Zaghawa society is also divided into two social classes, Mai and non-Mai. It is not known how and when this class arose, and there is a wide controversy being raised today among the tribe’s people, especially among the educated class, about the reasons for the existence of class within a single ethnic component that does not differ much in customs, traditions, and culture.
The available information about the origin of the Zaghawa is scarce, and different opinions came through the writings of Arab geographers such as Qalqashandi, Al-Idrisi, Ibn Khaldun, and Al-Yaqoubi, and from some Western writers such as Heinrich Barth Warkel. Opinions differed about the origin of the Zaghawa. There are attempts and efforts by Arab geographers to link the Zaghawa with the Arab Arabs or Himyarites, and other opinions say that they are from the ancient Libyan peoples or from Hamitic barbarians. With this conflict of opinions, we still need more research to know the origin of the Zaghawa people. The language element may help us know some of the characteristics that determine the features of the origin of the Zaghawa. In this regard, the first question that comes to the mind of the reader or listener, especially to the mind of those who have knowledge. Bzaghawa, even a little, is what is the difference between the two names: Zaghawa, which is widely circulated inside and outside Sudan, and the name Beri, which is usually used by the tribe today within limited geographical and social boundaries. There are no specific references that address this aspect, but the phenomenon of duplication of names is common in the culture of human society. To know the difference between them, it is necessary to know the difference between two important terms in naming geographical names, places, and peoples, namely (endonym and exonym). One indicates the external noun and the other denotes the internal noun.
The fact that there are two or more names for something, one of which is a local or internal name and the other is an external name, is an ancient and widespread fact in human society throughout history. The closest example of this phenomenon is Germany. The name used internally by the German people for the German people is Deutschland, and the name used in Britain and many countries of the world is Germany. When one is within the German community in their country, one may not hear this external name used among members of German society. Likewise, you rarely hear the word “Egypt” for Egypt among the Egyptian people within their homeland, Egypt. We also find the use of the word “Chinese” among the Arabs and “Chinese” among the English, but among the Chinese people they call themselves by a name other than these two names. As an example of double naming, we find that the Zaghawa call Alberti (Douqa) and Al-Midob (Didih), and thus the phenomenon of endonym and exonym applies when using the names Zaghawa and Berri.
The names Zaghawa and Berri, according to the above definition, are circulated in different social and political circles, in addition to being used in two different geographical areas. The name (Beri) is the common name of the tribe in a limited geographical area extending from the far northwest of Darfur to the north-eastern regions of the present-day state of Chad. The Zaghawa are historically known to others as the inhabitants of this geographical area before the colonial powers drew borders for a geographical area and were called, politically and geographically, by the name Sudan and Chad at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is a region rich in the heritage of the Zaghawa tribe, their names, and historical events related to them for centuries. They call themselves (Beri), and this name is circulated locally or internally (endonym) within this limited geographical and social scope. As for the outside community, we find that the use of the word “wild” outside this social environment and outside this geographical scope has no value and will not be familiar to others because the other or the outside community has used and is still using the word “Zaghawa” as an exonym for “wild.”
The Zaghawa people belong to the Nilo-Saharan language family, which is spoken by more than 50 million people, covering a wide geographical area that includes the areas of the Shari Basin and the borders of the Nile River, to the north at the borders of historical Nubia and to the south at the Nilotic tribal areas.
The Zaghawa language, as we mentioned above, belongs to the Nilo-Saharan language, which constitutes several languages that can be classified into more than seven groups, including 1- The Alberta language 2- Central Sudanese languages such as the Jur language 3- Eastern Sudanese languages such as Tama and Aringa 4
Leave a Reply