Droughts, famines and the Beja vocabulary (Cushitic, Sudan)

International audience The pastoralist Beja people of eastern Sudan live in an arid area where the community is regularly hit by drought and famine. Over the centuries they have adopted various strategies for adapting to their environment and survival techniques with their meagre resources. The last tragic episode of the mid-1980-s (Manger et al. 1996), which led to the almost total disappearance of their livestock, and the global economic and climate change that have affected them (as elsewhere) dramatically changed their way of life. Although the Beja-s are fully aware of the changes of the last four decades, they have not affected the vocabulary related to flora, livestock, fodder, beverages, food, and seasons at the same speed and to the same extent. This presentation will focus on the last five semantic domains in two directions: (i) how the vocabulary reflects (sometimes out-dated) cultural practises notably linked to solidarity and parsimony in a hostile environment, and (ii) how their meaning and denotation have changed since the first lexicons and dictionaries published in the 19th century until today (Almkvist 1981-1885; Reinisch 1895; Roper 1928; Vanhove & Hamid Ahmed in press). To give just one example, although almost no one does it nowadays, people still remember in urban areas, and still use in rural areas (including the young generation), the compound verb simdaːj-saloːl ‘to drink milk from the cord that hangs from the goatskin’, thus reflecting how people were careful, and actually still are, in their consumption of this popular beverage, especially during periods of drought.