The Ababda ( or ) are an Arab or Beja tribe in eastern Egypt and Sudan. Historically, most were Bedouins living in the area between the Nile and the Red Sea, with some settling along the trade route linking Korosko with Abu Hamad. Numerous traveler accounts from the nineteenth century report that some Ababda at that time still spoke Beja or a language of their own, hence many secondary sources consider the Ababda to be a Beja subtribe. Most Ababda now speak Arabic and identify as an Arab tribe from the Hijaz. The Ababda have a total population of over 250,000 people. Origin and history Ababda tribal origin narratives identify them as an Arab people from the Hijaz, descended from Zubayr ibn al-Awwam (possibly through his son Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr) following the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Many published sources in Western languages identify the Ababda as a subtribe of the Beja, or as descendants of speakers of a Cushitic language. Language Arabic Today, virtually all Ababda communities speak Arabic. There is no oral tradition of having spoken any other language prior to Arabic, in keeping with Ababda Arab origin narratives. In a 1996 study, Rudolf de Jong found that the Ababda dialect of Arabic was quite similar to that of the Shukriya people of the Sudan, and concluded that it was an extension of the northern Sudanese dialect area. Alfred von Kremer reported in 1863 that the Ababda had developed an Arabic-based thieves' cant that only they understood. Ababda or Beja Language The Ababda may have spoken a dialect of Beja before Arabic, but if so, nothing of that dialect is preserved today. John Lewis Burckhardt reported that in 1813 those Ababda who co-resided with the Bishari tribe spoke Beja. Alfred von Kremer believed them to be native Beja-speakers and was told that the Ababda were bilingual in Arabic, which they spoke with a heavy accent. Those who resided with the Nubians spoke Kenzi. Robert Hartmann, who visited the country in 1859/60, noted that the vast majority of the Ababda now spoke Arabic. However, in the past they used to speak a Beja dialect that was now, as he was told, solely restricted to a few nomadic families roaming the Eastern Desert. He believed that they abandoned their language in favour of Arabic due to their close contact with other arabophone tribes. The Swedish linguist Herman Almkvist, writing in