Editing Beja language (section)

====Case and definiteness====
A noun may be prefixed by a clitic definite article, or have an indefinite suffix. Definite articles indicate gender, number, and case. The indefinite suffix marks gender only, and does not appear in the nominative case.{{sfn|Roper|1928|loc=§43}} For feminine common nouns, the indefinite suffix is {{lang|bej-Latn|-t}}; for masculine nouns and feminine proper nouns, {{lang|bej-Latn|-b}}. The indefinite suffixes only appear after vowels. The definite article is proclitic. It has the following forms with masculine monosyllabic nouns that do not begin with {{IPA|/h/}} or {{IPA|/ʔ/}} (note that an initial glottal stop is usually omitted in writing, and that all words that appear to be vowel-initial actually begin with a glottal stop):

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|-
!| &nbsp;
!| Nominative
!| Oblique
|-
!| Singular
| {{lang|bej-Latn|uu-|italic=no}}
| {{lang|bej-Latn|oo-|italic=no}}
|-
!| Plural
| {{lang|bej-Latn|aa-|italic=no}}
| {{lang|bej-Latn|ee-|italic=no}}
|-
|}

The feminine definite articles begin with {{angbr|{{lang|bej-Latn|t}}}} but are otherwise identical ({{lang|bej-Latn|tuu-}}, {{lang|bej-Latn|too-}}, {{lang|bej-Latn|taa-}}, {{lang|bej-Latn|tee-}}). With nouns longer than one syllable and with nouns that begin with {{IPA|/h/}} or {{IPA|/ʔ/}}, reduced forms of the definite article are used which do not distinguish between cases, but maintain gender distinctions. In some dialects (e.g. that described by Wedekind, Wedekind, and Musa for Port Sudan) the reduced forms maintain number distinctions; in others (e.g. that described by [[Martine Vanhove|Vanhove]] and Roper for Sinkat) they do not.