Zaghawa

In light of the impending overthrow of Idriss Deby, the world's richest Zaghawa, and the continuing violence in Chad (most likely supported by Sudan) I wanted to write a follow-up post on Zaghawa. I was finally able to get the sound values for the Zaghawa Beria Alphabet that I wrote about before:

A B P S CD E F G H I J K L M N X O R T U Y W Z

A b p s c d e f g h i j k l m n x o r t u y w z

a b p s š/ʃ d e f g h i j k l m n ɲ/ñ o r t u y w ŋ

These are taken from camel brandings, as I mentioned earlier, and I can not figure out why there would be capital letters and lowercase letters, but in the only text I have access to, it seems to be used as it would in French (Chad being a francophone country). This one text I have, entitled "La Vendeuse de Lait" starts:

Kubayni, bagu oh barta ni geni ru / key key-gini. Ber kettié, oh kigo / narení.

More on the rest of the text, and some translation later, when I have a chance to talk to one of my Zaghawa staff people who has informed me that he, like other Beria, are a very different group of Zaghawa than the "wange" power mongerers like Deby and Minni Minnawi (whom he considers traitors for having signed the Bogus peace deal with Khartoum).