Sudanese Arabic and Darfur language analysis (LADO): Sudan or Chad?

Claims from Sudan reach immigration authorities with every kind of documentary gap. National identity records may have been lost in displacement, a birth certificate may never have been issued in a rural area, and papers issued in Modern Standard Arabic can be hard to verify from abroad. Where the claimed home is in Darfur, a further doubt is common: the claimant could, in principle, be a Chadian national rather than a Sudanese one, since Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit communities all live on both sides of the border.

Language analysis for the determination of origin gives an independent, linguistic answer to that question. It may be requested before an initial decision, when a refusal is reconsidered, or in an asylum appeal where the tribunal must decide whether the account of growing up in, say, West Darfur is credible. Lawyers acting for claimants also commission an independent second opinion when they disagree with a report already on the file. Such questions arise in asylum systems in the UK, North America, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

Sudanese Arabic across the centre and north of the country looks to the speech of Khartoum and Omdurman as a widely understood norm. It has its own pronunciation, vocabulary and expressions, and although it shares some features with Egyptian Arabic it is recognisably distinct. An analyst therefore first asks whether a recording fits that Sudanese profile at all, or whether it leans towards Egyptian or Levantine speech, which can happen with people who have lived for years in Egypt, among Sudanese communities in the Gulf, or in transit countries.

Within Sudan the picture is not uniform. In Darfur and Kordofan, Baggara-type Arabic is spoken, and it is related to the Chadian Arabic used as a common language across Chad and the wider Sahel. Chadian Arabic itself carries many words from local African languages. Separating Darfur Arabic from the Arabic of N'Djamena or eastern Chadian markets is delicate work, so our analysts look closely at vowels and consonants, intonation, grammatical forms, everyday vocabulary and borrowings, and they keep Juba Arabic, the Arabic-based contact language of South Sudan, clearly apart from Sudanese Arabic proper.

Many people from Darfur are not first-language Arabic speakers. Fur is centred on the Jebel Marra massif and the farming areas around Zalingei, Kabkabiya and Nyala, with smaller communities in eastern Chad; it is a tonal language whose verbs behave very differently from Arabic. Zaghawa, which its speakers call Beria, belongs to the Saharan group and is spoken on both sides of the Chad and Sudan border. Masalit, a Maban language, has its homeland in Dar Masalit around El Geneina in West Darfur, extending into eastern Chad, and there are dialect differences between Sudanese and Chadian Masalit.

For these speakers the analysis can draw on two strands. One is the first language itself, where an analyst who knows the variety listens for regional pronunciation, tone in Fur, vocabulary and the place names people use, since Fur villages often carry both a Fur and an Arabic name. The other is the second language: whether the person's Arabic looks Sudanese or Chadian, and whether a Zaghawa speaker from Chad also shows contact with French. Proficiency in Arabic varies widely, especially among women and older people from rural areas, and a thin command of Arabic is not in itself evidence against a Darfur origin.

• Sudanese Arabic against Egyptian, Levantine and Chadian Arabic
• Darfur and Kordofan Baggara-type Arabic against N'Djamena speech
• Fur, Zaghawa (Beria) and Masalit as first languages, with their Sudanese and Chadian sides
• Code-switching, place names and second languages picked up in Egypt, Libya or the Gulf

Each case starts with a recording, often an interview, which is transcribed with attention to dialect features. A native-speaker analyst with linguistic training works on the material alongside a forensic linguist, using methods from forensic phonetics, dialectology and sociolinguistics, and acoustic measurement software where it adds precision. The stated origin is weighed against the other plausible origins, typically another part of Sudan, eastern Chad or a long stay in a neighbouring country, and the speaker's own history of movement is taken into account.

The result is a written LADO report that sets out the data, the methods and the reasoning step by step, discusses alternative explanations and states its uncertainty openly. It is an expert opinion for the decision maker, not proof of nationality. Our work follows recognised professional codes of practice for forensic speech analysis, and analysts can attend a tribunal as expert witnesses when their findings are tested.

LADO works at the level of region, town or community: Jebel Marra, El Geneina, Khartoum. A nationality assessment works at national level, asking whether a person's command of the national vehicular language, administrative vocabulary and knowledge of national institutions fit Sudan rather than Chad. For a Darfuri claimant both perspectives can matter, because a local dialect may be shared across the border while the national institutions and documents on each side differ. Used together, the two give a fuller and more robust picture than either alone.

A LADO case rarely stands alone. SILA Linguists® provides Sudanese Arabic interpreters and interpreters for Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit for solicitors' conference meetings, Home Office interviews, legal and court settings and community appointments, face to face, by telephone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or by video through the SILA Linguists® app. A female or male interpreter can be requested. Certified Sudanese Arabic translation, with a signed statement of accuracy accepted by UK authorities, covers identity records, birth and school certificates and court papers in Modern Standard Arabic, and Chadian documents in French or Arabic. Sudanese Arabic transcription and translation of interview recordings is available with time stamps.

Our vetted, trained and qualified analysts can support immigration authorities, solicitors and barristers acting for claimants, courts and tribunals, charities and refugee organisations supporting people from Darfur, and the police. Across the UK, North America, Australia, New Zealand and beyond, each case has one project team that coordinates analysts, interpreters and translators, with vetted specialist linguists bound by confidentiality agreements and UK GDPR.