Using Traditional Literary Science in Preserving Endangered Languages

Using traditional literary science in preserving endangered languages is designed to maintain the origin of the languages in general, and more particularly, the Beja language, -Bedawiet-, in Eastern part of Sudan. It is basically expected to be beneficial for teachers, who teach in those areas, where English is mainly taught as a second or third language. This book responds to (Morin, 1997), recommendation about preserving Bedawiet language in terms of its rich and oral literature because the available resources are limited. Therefore, the collected songs and poems are first translated into English and an IPA is used to script the Bedawiet sounds. The data summary concludes that the traditional songs had a low average of borrowed words, whereas modern songs have almost 50 % borrowed from Arabic. A judging panel resulted in dropping the number of Arabic borrowed words in the first decade of 2020.
It is highly recommended to teach these songs to children at schools by training the teachers in the Centre of Beja Culture at Red Sea University and involving parents in the processes of maintaining the language.