User:Mmakhsu1/Language selection

I will be working this semester with Zuri Eason! [[1]]

Beja

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Bedawiyet, or Beja [ISO: bej], is a North Cushitic language, the only one of its category in the Cushitic language family . According to the most recent estimates, it is spoken by the eponymous Beja people, who live in the western coast of the Red Sea (in Sudan, Eritrea, and Egypt). Beja contains three cases: nominative, oblique, and genitive, and nouns and adjectives in Beja are either masculine or feminine . According to the most recent estimates, native speakers of the language number over 2.7 million, and the language has been written in both Arabic and Latin script, though neither orthographic system has gained widespread use . I found a copy of the New Testament in the Beja language (written in Arabic script) that could be useful .

Soqotri

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The Soqotri language [ISO: sqt] is a South Semitic language spoken by the Soqotri people on the eponymous Soqotra Archipelago . The language contains at least three dialects, although some sources list over five, which I find rather cool considering it's really only spoken on the islands that make up the archipelago. The language currently has 110,000 speakers according to the most recent estimate, and its use continues to dwindle today, making it a threatened/endangered language . A team of Russian linguists developed a writing system for Soqotri in 2014 that utilizes the Arabic script; however, it's not widely used today. I found this app that contains several stories written in Soqotri that could be utilized as texts, though I haven't downloaded it to determine the quality of the app .

Mandinka

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The Mandinka language [ISO: mnk] is a Mande language spoken by the Mandinka/Malinke people in the Gambia, parts of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. Today, it is spoken by a total of 2.2 million people, with the Latin and Arabic scripts utilized for writing . According to this source, nouns in Mandinka do not have inflectional morphology; instead, word order is heavily relied on as a way of communicating meaning . I found this copy of the Bible in Mandinka that we could use as a text .

References

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