Endangered Language Alliance
Beria is classified by linguists as an Eastern Saharan language of the Nilo-Saharan language family, whose closest linguistic relative was Berti, a language of northern Sudan which may have been a variety of Beria but is now thought to be extinct. Wegi (Twer) is considered to be the dialect with the largest number of speakers within Sudan, followed by Kube. There seem to be a few other dialects, all of which are apparently mutually intelligible–though the dialect situation is likely to be in flux given the extraordinary mobility of recent years.
The following is a group of essential everyday words and phrases in Beria, recorded by the ELA in New York:
The audio recording below is about Tawila, a once prosperous town in Darfur before it was destroyed in the current conflict.
Jakobi, Angelika and Joachim Crass. 2004. Grammaire du beria. Nilo-Saharan Linguistic Analyses and Documentation Vol. 18, M. Lionel Bender, Franz Rottland and Norbert Cyffer (eds.). Köln: Rüdiger Küppe Verlag.
Wolfe, Andrew Miller. 2001. Towards a generative phonology and morphology of the dialects of Beria. B.A. honors thesis, Department of Linguistics, Harvard University.