A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Beja (Sudan)

This book contains a Beja-English-French dictionary, the first one to focus on the central and southern varieties of this Cushitic language as spoken in eastern Sudan, an appendix of clitics and affixes, an English-Beja reversal index, a French-Beja reversal index, and a grammatical sketch. The dictionary and its appendices contain over 8,000 entries and sub-entries. It is the largest dictionary on this language, and the sole one which is systematically organized by roots (the alphabetical order considers consonants and vowels), with all their variants and derived forms (also cross-referenced alphabetically). Lemmas contain the base form and all the derived forms of a root with all relevant information about parts of speech, verb categories, gender, source of loan words, etymologies, morphological, grammatical, sociolinguistic, encyclopaedic information, synonyms, antonyms, and examples. Literal translations of compound words and examples are provided when needed. Stress, tone, and phonetic forms are only mentioned when unpredictable from the rules mentioned in the grammatical sketch. The grammatical sketch contains sections on phonology, morphology (including compounds, evaluative morphology, and interjections), TAM (including verbal complex predicates), elements of syntax (including complex utterances), and information and discourse structures. This work is mainly intended as a resource for linguists, in particular specialist of Cushitic and Semitic languages, and can also serve as a resource for speakers and learners of Beja.

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