Editing Beja language (section)

==History==
[[File:saqqaraOstracon.jpg|thumb|The ostracon which Francis Llewellyn Griffith believed bore writing in the [[Blemmyan language]]. [[Gerald M. Browne]] and Klaus Wedekind believe this to be the ancestor of the modern Beja language.]]

Christopher Ehret proposes the following sequence of sound changes between Proto-Cushitic and Beja:{{sfn|Ehret|2008|pp=153–155}}
# PC *{{IPA|ts'}} → *{{IPA|c'}} ([[alveolar ejective affricate]] becomes [[palatal ejective stop]])
# PC *{{IPA|t'}} → *{{IPA|ts'}} ([[dental and alveolar ejective stops|dental ejective stop]] becomes [[alveolar ejective affricate]])
# *C' → C ([[ejective consonant|ejectives]] become their non-ejective voiceless counterparts)
# [+[[lateral consonant|lateral]]/+[[obstruent]]] → [+[[retroflex consonant|retroflex]]/+obstruent] (that is, {{IPA|/dl/}} and {{IPA|/tl'/}} become {{IPA|/ɖ/}} and {{IPA|/ʈ/}}, respectively)
# PC *{{IPA|dz}} → *{{IPA|ts}} ([[voiced alveolar affricate]] becomes [[voiceless alveolar affricate|voiceless]])
# *{{IPA|ts}} → {{IPA|s}}; *{{IPA|c}} → {{IPA|ʃ}} ([[voiceless alveolar affricate]] becomes a [[voiceless alveolar fricative|fricative]], [[voiceless palatal plosive]] becomes a [[voiceless postalveolar fricative|postalveolar fricative]]
# *{{IPA|p}} → {{IPA|b}}
# PC *{{IPA|ɣʷ}} → *{{IPA|xʷ}} ([[labialization|labialized]] [[voiced velar fricative]] becomes [[voiceless velar fricative|voiceless]])
# *{{IPA|x⁽ʷ⁾}} → *{{IPA|k⁽ʷ⁾}} (velar fricatives become plosives)
# PC *{{IPA|ɬ}} → {{IPA|r}} /V_V ([[voiceless dental and alveolar lateral fricatives|lateral fricative]] becomes [[voiced dental and alveolar taps and flaps|alveolar tap]] between vowels)
# PC *{{IPA|ɬ}} → {{IPA|l}} /#_ (lateral fricative becomes [[voiced dental, alveolar and postalveolar lateral approximants|lateral approximant]] word-initially)
# PC *z → {{IPA|j}} /V_ (a consonant of unknown value becomes [[voiced palatal approximant|palatal approximant]] after vowels)
# PC *z → {{IPA|d}} /#_ (the same consonant of unknown value becomes [[voiced alveolar stop]] word-initially)
# PC *{{IPA|ŋ}}, *{{IPA|ɳ}} → {{IPA|n}} (all nasals but {{IPA|/m/}} collapse into [[alveolar nasal]])

Ehret's reconstructed Proto-Cushitic /z/ is not a [[voiced alveolar fricative]], but a consonant of unknown value. Ehret proposes that it might be a [[voiced palatal plosive]] {{IPA|/ɟ/}}.{{sfn|Ehret|2008|p=155}}

Some linguists and paleographers believe that they have uncovered evidence of an earlier stage of Beja, referred to in different publications as "Old Bedauye" or "Old Beja." [[Helmut Satzinger]] has identified the names found on several third century CE [[ostraca]] (potsherds) from the Eastern Desert as likely [[Blemmyan language|Blemmyan]], representing a form of Old Beja. He also identifies several epigraphic texts from the fifth and sixth centuries as representing a later form of the same language.{{sfn|Satzinger|2014}} Nubiologist Gerald Browne, Egyptologist Helmut Satzinger, and Cushiticist Klaus Wedekind believed that an ostracon discovered in a monastery in [[Saqqarah]] also represents the Old Beja language. Browne and Wedekind identified the text as a translation of [[Psalm 30]].{{sfnm|1a1=Browne|1y=2003|2a1=Wedekind|2y=2010|ps=, Wedekind identified this psalm as number [[Psalm 29|29]], but made it clear that he was referring to the [[Septuagint]]. Different traditions number the psalms differently and the psalm in question is more commonly numbered 30 today, as here.}}