1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Subfamily: Cushitic
  3. Genus: Beja

Beja

WALS coordinates: 18° N, 36° E

spoken in Eritrea, Sudan

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Beja
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Bedauye,
    • Bischari
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /p/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Right-oriented: One of the last three
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Ablaut/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Dependent-marking
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders Two
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
    Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    Definite Articles Definite affix
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases 2 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Syncretism in relevant NP-types
    Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect Other perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
    Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
    Order of Adjective and Noun No dominant order
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative before and after Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Subordinating suffix
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun Other
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat
    Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology
    Predicative Possession Genitive
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Locational
    Lexicon
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Other
    Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Logical meanings