Baggara Arabs
The Baggāra (Arabic: البَقَّارَة, romanized: al baqqāra "heifer herder") or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile river near south Kordofan, numbering over six million. They are known as Baggara and Abbala in Sudan, and as Shuwa Arabs in Cameroon, Nigeria and Western Chad. The term Shuwa is said to be of Kanuri origin.
عرب البقارة | |
|---|---|
Caravan of Baggara Arab nomads in Chad | |
| Total population | |
| 6,080,000+ | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Sudan | 3,700,000+ |
| Chad | 2,230,000+ |
| Cameroon | 204,000 |
| Niger | 150,000 |
| Central African Republic | 107,000 |
| Nigeria | 100,000 |
| Languages | |
| Arabic (Chadian Arabic, Sudanese Arabic) | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Sudanese Arabs, Nilo-Saharans, Nubians, Arabs | |
The Baggāra mostly speak their distinct dialect, known as Chadian Arabic. However the Baggāra of Southern Kordofan, due to contact with the sedentary population and the Sudanese Arab camel herders of Kordofan, has led to some Sudanese Arabic influence on the dialect of that zone. They also have a common traditional mode of subsistence, nomadic cattle herding, although nowadays many lead a settled existence. Nevertheless, collectively they do not all necessarily consider themselves one people, i.e., a single ethnic group. The term "baggara culture" was introduced in 1994 by Braukämper.
The political use of the term baggāra in Sudan is to denote a large group of closely related cattle-owning Arabic speaking tribes that reside traditionally in the Southern parts of Darfur and Kordofan who mixed extensively with the native people they live with in the region, in particular the Fur people, Nuba peoples and Fula people. The bulk of Baggara Arabs live in Chad and Sudan, with small minorities in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Central African Republic and South Sudan. Those who are still nomads migrate seasonally between grazing lands in the wet season and river areas in the dry season.
Their common language is known to academics by various names, such as Chadian Arabic, taken from the regions where the language is spoken. For much of the 20th century, this language was known to academics as "Shuwa Arabic", but "Shuwa" is a geographically and socially parochial term that has fallen into disuse among linguists specializing in the language, who instead refer to it as "Chadian Arabic" depending on the origin of the native speakers being consulted for a given academic project.