Not to get too far off-topic but isn’t a “Scot”, according to the original definition, someone from the area of Britain where Scottish Gaelic was the predominant language (most of which overlaps with the present boundaries of Scotland today)? Has it ever really changed?
The written language is almost the same, but the spoken one is at time almost unintelligible.
Originally, “Scot” meant “Irish.” But clearly that’s not the current meaning. A Scot is from any part of Scotland.
I think a good way to think about it might be to think about the term “Latin American.”
At it’s core, it (like Arab) refers to a linguistic identity. And let’s not forget that many, many “ethnic” identities are really deeply tied up with linguistic identities. Four hundred years ago, the vast majority of people in France did not speak French and would not identify themselves as belong to what we now consider “French” people. The evolution of a “French” ethnic identity basically stems from how the French language came to unite people. Anyway, “Latin American” stems from lumping together Americans who speak Spanish or Portugese. But it’s not a perfect description. A Guatemalan Mayan Indian might be called Latin American despite not speaking a word of Spanish. And we probably lump Anglophone Belize in to things because hey, why not?
So, back to “Latin American.” Like “Arab,” “Latin American” vaguely references a sort of racial identity, but not in a particularly exact or consistent way. “Latin American” brings to mind brownish people with mixed Iberian-Indian descent. But plenty of Latin American have other roots. And when looked at under the microscope, the idea does seem pretty arbitrary. A person of mixed Spanish-Aztec descent doesn’t share a ton genetically with an Incan.
It is somewhat geographic, but not perfectly. Central and South America are both equally “Latin American,” but so are parts of the Caribbean that have next to nothing to do with South America and parts of the US that are indisguishable from Latin America by language, culture or population are not considered Latin America.
Likewise, Arab identity relates to ancestry, language, culture, and geography, but not in a way that is absolutely consistent and easy to pin down. In the end, like all ethnic identity, it really is a matter of where your personal identity intersects with how other people perceive your identity.
I’ve heard the theory that Arabic today is similar to Latin in the 9th Century or so - officially, all of Western and Southern Europe spoke Latin; in practice, the educated classes spoke and wrote Latin, while the common people spoke proto-French, proto-Italian, proto-Spanish etc.
I think at the very least we can say definitively that Persians and Turks are not Arabs.
You’re right. I forgot about that.
True, but unlike 9th century Europe, their is a much higher level of literacy which would place the brakes on development of new languages.
Good point.
Well put. I think this gets the “language/not language” balance just right.
Please skip if you really don’t care about the particulars of African ethnic identity
This may not be the most accurate way to look at things.
Thinking of a solid genetic split between “black Africa” and “Arab Africa” is not the best description of things. Africa is home to some of the most genetic diversity in the world, and the mishmash of genetic markers in Sahel is not a stark divide or even a gradient, but mostly just a whole bunch of different kinds of people. Take a look at this map. The area around Sudan has a lot going on. and chances are any two groups beefing against each other probably do have different ancestries, even if they may share a similar skin tone. In the particular case of Sudanese Arabs, there really was a 12th century movement of Egyptian Arabs into Sudan.
Historically, Islam has been in Africa since within Mohammed’s lifetime, and was well-established across the Sahel within a couple centuries. This was that part of Africa’s medieval period, which is characterized by large empires, quite a bit of intercontinental trade, and a free flow of ideas, especially from the Middle East. in the 11th-14th century, most of the Sahel and much of West Africa was under the control of “black” Islamic empires that really were not that different than the Islamic empires to the East or the Christian empires in Europe. And the Islamic empires of this era were a continuum, culturally, with the Arab world to the East. That is where a lot modern West/Sahelian ethnic identities come from. Sudanese Arab identity probably dates back quite a bit further than things like “German” or “French” identity. It’s not just some random people who decided to pick up Arabic while their brothers across the river didn’t- it’s a complex interplay of political organization dating back a thousand years.
Coming back to modern times, Africans in the region don’t tend to think of “ethnicity” in exactly the same we that we do. Ethnicity has a slightly different meaning- kind of like how an Indian hijra isn’t exactly the same thing as an American trangender person. The same words might be used to describe it, but the place it takes in culture and the meaning it has for people is different. We tend to value skin color a lot when thinking about ethnicity. We look at a fifth generation American who happens to look a bit Asian, and we think “Ah, he’s Asian.” In that part of Africa, skin color really can be quite secondary, and nobody bats an eye at a black Arab or a white Hausa. Ethnicity in the Sahel can have a performative aspect, and is often considered a fluid thing. It’s possible to “become” a different ethnicity- and religion can be a big part of that.
Anyway, it’s all complicated and there is a lot of nuance. But the idea that Sudanese Arabs are basically the same as the guys they are fighting except for language isn’t anywhere near accurate.
Not quite what I said ( or at least meant to imply ) :). I don’t disagree with your comments in general.
However in this case I was thinking about the specific example of the geographically intertwined Baggara and Fur peoples. Opposite sides ( loosely, depends which Baggara tribe in particular ), the first Arabic-speaking, the second Nilo-Saharan. And genetically quite closely related - the degree to which this is the result of generations of interbreeding vs. some degree of common origin I have no idea. The Baggara certainly have their own origin mythology reaching back to Arabia.
But it is also might be worth noting that the “migration theory”, the idea that large numbers of Arabs immigrated into northern Sudan in the medieval period as you stated, originated as a colonial-era hypothesis. As a result it has been accused of having some degree of “Orientalist”/racist taint and it has come under varying degrees of academic attack ( probably most loudly by Sudan historian Jay Spaulding ) as being weakly supported by facts on the ground. It also has some quasi-contemporary support from the writing of Ibn Khaldun ( re: the Juhayna Arab super-tribe of northern Sudan at least ), but he too has been accused of having some biases and unreliability issues ( not uncommon with pre-modern sources ). Not to say the hypothesis doesn’t still have its supporters, so it remains a point of contention. Some migration seems highly likely. But the degree and level of impact of that, if any, seems a little up in the air.