Editing Ababda people (section)

===Arabic===
[[File:14 Ababda (9) C.jpg|thumb|right|Ababda bedouin in Wadi um Ghamis (1961)]]
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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=ضرار |first1=محمّد صالح |title=تاريخ شرق السودان: ممالك البجة‥ قبائلها وتاريخها |date=2012 |publisher=مكتبة التوبة |location=Khartoum |page=36}}</ref>

In a 1996 study, Rudolf de Jong found that the Ababda dialect of Arabic was quite similar to that of the [[Shukria clan|Shukriya people]] of the Sudan, and concluded that it was an extension of the northern Sudanese dialect area.<ref>{{cite book |last1=de Jong |first1=Rudolf |editor1-last=Arnold |editor1-first=Werner |editor2-last=Bobzin |editor2-first=Hartmut |title="Sprich doch mit deinen Knechten aramäisch, wir verstehen es!": 60 Beiträge zur Semitistik: Festschrift für Otto Jastrow zum 60. Geburtstag |date=2002 |publisher=Harrassowitz Verlag |location=Wiesbaden |isbn=978-3447044912 |pages=356–358 |chapter=Notes on the dialect of the ʿAbābda}}</ref>

[[Alfred von Kremer]] reported in 1863 that the Ababda had developed an Arabic-based [[thieves' cant]] that only they understood.<ref>{{cite book |last1=von Kremer |first1=Alfred |title=Aegypten: Forschungen über Land und Volk während eines zehnjährigen Aufenthalts |volume=1 |date=1863 |publisher=F.A. Brockhaus |location=Leipzig |pages=126, 131–132}}</ref>