Berti

Berti is an extinct language formerly found in northern Sudan, specifically in the Tagabo Hills, Darfur, and Kurdufan. Berti is classified by Ethnologue as Nilo-Saharan - Saharan - Eastern. [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=byt Ethnologue report: Berti] , Ethnologue] Berti speakers migrated into the region with other Nilo-Saharan speakers, such as the Masalit and Daju, who were agriculturalists practicing varying degrees of animal husbandry. They settled in two separate areas: one north of Al-Fashir, while the other had continued eastward, settling in eastern Darfur and western Kurdufan by the nineteenth century. The two groups did not appear to share a common identity, the western group differing noticeably in its cultivation of gum arabic. By the 1990s, Arabic had largely replaced Berti as a native language. [ [http://countrystudies.us/sudan/38.htm Sudan: The Muslim Peoples] , U.S. Library of Congress]

Notes and references