Nubian languages

Short description: Branch of Eastern Sudanic languages

Not to be confused with Nubi language, and the Nubia language of Papua New Guinea.

Nubian

Ethnicity| Nubian
Geographic
distribution| Egypt, Sudan
Linguistic classification| Nilo-Saharan?

* Eastern Sudanic
* Northern Eastern
* Nubian

Proto-language| Proto-Nubian
Subdivisions|

* Central
* Northern
* Western

ISO 639-2 / 5| nub
Glottolog| nubi1251[1]

The Nubian languages are a group of related languages spoken by the Nubians. Nubian languages were spoken throughout much of Sudan, but as a result of Arabization they are today mostly limited to the Nile Valley between Aswan (southern Egypt) and Al Dabbah. In the 1956 Census of Sudan there were 167,831 speakers of Nubian languages.[2] Nubian is not to be confused with the various Nuba languages spoken in villages in the Nuba mountains and Darfur.[3]

More recent classifications, such as those in Glottolog, consider that Nubian languages form a primary language family. Older classifications consider Nubian to be a branch of the Nilo-Saharan phylum, a proposal that has low support among linguists due to a lack of supporting data.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Present-day languages
* 3 Classification
* 4 Orthography
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 Sources
* 8 External links

## History

Old Nubian is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, comprising both texts of a Christian religious nature and documentary texts dealing with state and legal affairs. Old Nubian was written with a slanted uncial variety of the Coptic alphabet, with the addition of characters derived from Meroitic. These documents range in date from the 8th to the 15th century AD. Old Nubian is currently considered ancestral to modern Nobiin, even though it shows signs of extensive contact with Dongolawi.

Another as yet undeciphered Nubian language has been preserved in a few inscriptions found in Soba and Musawwarat es-Sufra, and is assumed to have been the language of the kingdom of Alodia. Since their publication by Adolf Ermann in 1881, they have been referred to as 'Alwan inscriptions', 'Alwan Nubian or 'Soba Nubian'. This language appears to have become extinct by the 19th century.[4]

A reconstruction of Proto-Nubian has been proposed by Claude Rilly (2010: 272–273).[5]

## Present-day languages

A page from an Old Nubian translation of the Investiture of the Archangel Michael, from the 9th–10th century, found at Qasr Ibrim, now at the British Museum. Michael's name appears in red: Nubians during the period frequently used Greek personal names, often with a terminal ‑ⲓ added.Marble Monument found in Soba with an as yet undeciphered inscription in Alwan Nubian

The following Nubian languages are distinguished, spoken by in total about 950,000 speakers:

1. Nobiin, is the largest Nubian language with 685,000 speakers in Egypt, Sudan, and the Nubian diaspora. Previously known by the geographic terms Mahas and Fadicca/Fiadicca.[6]
2. Kenzi (endonym: Mattokki) with 35,000 speakers in Egypt[7] and Dongolawi (endonym: Andaandi) with 35,000 speakers in Sudan.[8] They are no longer considered a single language, but closely related. The split between Kenzi and Dongolawi is dated relatively recently to around the 15th century.[9] Dongolawi is now spoken as far south as ed-Debbah, but as late as the 19th century could be found as far south as Korti and probably even further upstream.[10]
3. Midob (Meidob) with 93,000 speakers.[11] The language is spoken primarily in and around the Malha volcanic crater in North Darfur.
4. Birgid, now extinct, was spoken north of Nyala around Menawashei, with the last known speakers alive in the 1970s. It was the predominant language between the corridor of Nyala and al-Fashir in the north and the Bahr al-Arab in the south as recently as 1860.[12]
5. Hill Nubian or Kordofan Nubian, a group of closely related languages or dialects spoken in various villages in the northern Nuba Mountains; in particular by the Dilling, Debri, and Kadaru. An extinct language, Haraza, is known only from a few dozen words recalled by village elders in 1923.[13][14]

Synchronic research on the Nubian languages began in the last decades of the nineteenth century, first focusing on the Nile Nubian languages Nobiin and Kenzi-Dongolawi. Several well-known Africanists have occupied themselves with Nubian, most notably Lepsius (1880), Reinisch (1879) and Meinhof (1918); other early Nubian scholars include Almkvist and Schäfer. Additionally, important comparative work on the Nubian languages has been carried out by Thelwall, Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst in the second half of the twentieth century and Claude Rilly and George Starostin in the twenty-first.

## Classification

Relations between the Nubian languages. Lines indicate genealogical relations, dotted lines linguistic influence; asterisks (*) mark languages unattested in writing, daggers (†) mark dead languages.

Traditionally, the Nubian languages are divided into three branches: Northern (Nile), Western (Darfur), and Central. Ethnologue's classifies the Nubian languages as follows:.[15]

* Nubian
* Northern (Nile)
* Old Nubian
* Nobiin
* Western (Darfur)
* Midob
* Central
* Kenzi
* Birgid
* Dongolawi
* Hill (Kordofan)
* Kadaru-Ghulfan
* Ghulfan
* Kadaru
* Unclassified
* Dair
* Dilling
* El Hugeirat
* Karko
* Wali

Glottolog groups all non-Northern Nubian branches in a single group named West-Central Nubian. Additionally, within Hill Nubian, Glottolog places Dair in the same branch as Kadaru.[16]

The relation between Dongolawi and Nobiin remains a matter of debate within Nubian Studies. Ethnologue's classification is based on glotto-chronological research of Thelwall (1982) and Bechhaus-Gerst (1996), which considers Nobiin the earliest branching from Proto-Nubian. They attribute the current syntactical and phonological proximity between Nobiin and Dongolawi to extensive language contact. Arguing that there is no archeological evidence for a separate migration to the Nile of Dongolawi speakers, Rilly (2010) provides evidence that the difference in vocabulary between Nobiin and Dongolawi is mainly due to a pre-Nubian substrate underneath Nobiin, which he relates to the Meroitic. Approaching the inherited proto-Nubian vocabulary in all Nubian languages systematically through a comparative linguistic approach, Rilly arrives at the following classification:[17]

* Nubian
* Nile Nubian
* Old Nubian
* Nobiin
* Kenzi-Dongolawi
* Dongolawi
* Kenzi
* Western Nubian
* Birgid
* Midob-Kordofan
* Midob
* Kordofan

## Orthography

There are three currently active proposals for a Nubian alphabet: based on the Arabic script, the Greek script, the Latin script and the Old Nubian alphabet. In the publication of various books of proverbs, dictionaries, and textbooks since the 1950s, Latin has been used by four authors, Arabic by two authors, and Old Nubian by three authors. For Arabic, the extended ISESCO system may be used to indicate vowels and consonants not found in the Arabic alphabet itself.

Character  | ⲁ | ⲃ | ⲅ | ⲇ | ⲉ | ⲍ | ⲏ | ⲑ | ⲓ | ⲓ̈ | ⲕ | ⲗ | ⲙ | ⲛ | ⲟ

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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|
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Romanized  | a | b | g | d | e | z | ē | th | i | ï | k | l | m | n | o
Arabized  | ا | ب | ج | د |  | ز |  |  | ي | ي | ك | ل | م | ن | و
Phonetic value | /a, aː/ | /b/ | /ɡ/ | /d/ | /e, eː/ | /z/ | /ə, əː/ | /θ/ | /i, iː/ | /j/ | /k/ | /l/ | /m/ | /n/ | /o/
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Character  | ⲡ | ⲣ | ⲥ | ⲧ | ⲩ | ⲫ | ⲱ | ϣ | ϩ | ⳝ | ⲇⳝ | ⲧⳝ | ⳟ | ⳡ | ⳣ
Romanized  | p | r | s | t | u | f | ō | š | h | c | j | ç | ŋ | ñ | w
Arabized  | پ | ر | س | ت | و | ف | و | ش | ه |  |  |  |  |  | و
Phonetic value | /p/ | /r/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u, uː/ | /f/ | /oː/ | /ʃ/ | /h/ | /ç/ | /ɟʝ/ | /cç/ | /ŋ/ | /ɲ/ | /w/

## See also

* List of Proto-Nubian reconstructions (Wiktionary)

## References

1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Nubian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nubi1251.
2. ↑ "Language and ethnic statistics in 20th century Sudanese censuses and surveys". https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01544597/document.
3. ↑ Thelwall, Robin (3 February 2002). "Nuba Language and History". Nuba Survival 1 (3). http://nubasurvival.org/Nuba Vision/Vol 1 Issue 3/7 Language and history.htm. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
4. ↑ Gerhards 2023, p. 147.
5. ↑ Rilly, Claude. 2010. Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-9042922372
6. ↑ "Nobiin". Ethnologue. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/fia/.
7. ↑ "Kenzi". Ethnologue. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/xnz/.
8. ↑ "Dongolawi". Ethnologue. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/xnz/.
9. ↑ Adams, W. Y. (1982). "The coming of Nubian speakers to the Nile Valley", in The Archeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. Edited by C. Ehret & M. Posnansky. Berkeley / Los Angeles, p. 38
10. ↑ Gerhards 2023, pp. 138–141.
11. ↑ "Midob". Ethnologue. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/mei/.
12. ↑ Spaulding 2006, p. 396.
13. ↑ Herman Bell (1975) "Documentary Evidence on the Haraza Nubian Language "
14. ↑ Template:Glotto
15. ↑ "Nubian". Ethnologue. https://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/nubian.
16. ↑ "Glottolog 3.0 – Kordofan Nubian" (in en). http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/kord1246.
17. ↑ Rilly, Claude (2010) (in fr). Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Peeters. pp. 401. ISBN 978-90-429-2237-2.

## Sources

* Abdel-Hafiz, A. (1988). A Reference Grammar of Kunuz Nubian. PhD Thesis, SUNY, Buffalo, NY.
* Adams, W. Y. (1982). "The coming of Nubian speakers to the Nile Valley", in The Archeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. Edited by C. Ehret & M. Posnansky. Berkeley / Los Angeles, 11–38.
* Armbruster, Charles Hubert (1960). Dongolese Nubian: A Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Armbruster, Charles Hubert (1965). Dongolese Nubian: A Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Asmaa M. I. Ahmed, "Suggestions for Writing Modern Nubian Languages", and Muhammad J. A. Hashim, "Competing Orthographies for Writing Nobiin Nubian", in Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages No.9, SIL/Sudan, Entebbe, 2004.
* Ayoub, A. (1968). The Verbal System in a Dialect of Nubian. Khartoum: University of Khartoum.
* Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne (1989). "Nile-Nubian Reconsidered", in Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics. Edited by M. Lionel Bender. Hamburg: Heinrich Buske.
* Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne (1996) (in de). Sprachwandel durch Sprachkontakt am Beispiel des Nubischen im Niltal. Cologne: Köppe. ISBN 3-927620-26-2.
* Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne (2011). The (Hi)story of Nobiin: 1000 Years of Language Change. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
* Erman, Adolf (1881). "Die Aloa-Inschriften." Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 19, no. 4. 112–15.
* Gerhards, Gabriel (2023). "Präarabische Sprachen der Ja'aliyin und Ababde in der europäischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts" (in German). Der Antike Sudan (Sudanarchäologische Gesellschaft zu Berlin e.V) 34: 135–152. https://www.academia.edu/110748602.
* Jakobi, Angelika & Tanja Kümmerle (1993). The Nubian Languages: An Annotated Bibliography. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
* Khalil, Mokhtar (1996). Wörterbuch der nubischen Sprache. Warsaw: Nubica.
* Rilly, Claude (2010). Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Leuven: Peeters.
* Spaulding, Jay (1990). "The Old Shaiqi Language in Historical Perspective". History in Africa (Cambridge University) 17: 283–292. doi:10.2307/3171817.
* Spaulding, Jay (2006). "Pastoralism, Slavery, Commerce, Culture and the Fate of the Nubians of Northern and Central Kordofan Under Dar Fur Rule, ca. 1750-ca. 1850". The International Journal of African Historical Studies (Boston University African Studies Center) 39 (3). ISSN 0361-7882.
* Starostin, George (2011). Explaining a Lexicostatistical Anomaly for Nubian Languages (lecture) May 25, 2011. Online version.
* Thelwall, Robin (1982). "Linguistic Aspects of Greater Nubian History", in The Archeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. Edited by C. Ehret & M. Posnansky. Berkeley/Los Angeles, 39–56. Online version.
* Werner, Roland (1987). Grammatik des Nobiin (Nilnubisch). Hamburg: Helmut Buske.
* Werner, Roland (1993). Tìdn-Àal: A Study of Midoob (Darfur Nubian). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.

## External links

* Swadesh List comparing basic words of the Nubian languages
* Panafrican localization page on Nubian (summaries of information, links)
* Nubian alphabet examples Script error: The function "in_lang" does not exist.
* The Lucky Bilingual: Ethnography of Factors Influencing Code-switching Among the Nubian Community in Southern Egypt
* Music video by Sudanese women's group Al Balabil, featuring the Nubian song "The Boat Set Sail" ("بابور كسونا") with English translation
* Music video featuring Nubian musician Hamza El Din's song Helalisa

* v
* t
* e

Eastern Sudanic languages

Northern k languages

| Nubian|

* Birgid
* Hill Nubian
* Kenzi-Dongolawi
* Midob
* Nobiin
* Old Nubian

|

Nara|

* Nara

Nyima|

* Ama
* Dinik

Taman|

* Sungor
* Tama

Southern n languages

| Surmic|

| North|

* Majang

|

Southeast|

* Kwegu
* Meʼen
* Mursi
* Suri

Southwest|

* Didinga
* Kacipo-Balesi
* Murle
* Laarim
* Tennet

Eastern Jebel|

* Aka
* Gaam
* Kelo
* Molo

Temein|

* Doni
* Temein
* Tese

Daju|

| Eastern|

* Liguri
* Shatt

|

Western|

* Beigo
* Daju Mongo
* Njalgulgule
* Nyala
* Sila

Nilotic languages

| Eastern Nilotic|

* Bari

| Teso–Turkana|

* Karimojong
* Teso
* Toposa
* Turkana

|

Lotuko|

* Lango
* Lokoya
* Lopit
* Lotuko

Ongamo–Maa|

* Camus
* Maasai
* Ongamo
* Samburu

Western Nilotic|

| Burun|

* North Burun
* South Burun

|

Dinka–Nuer|

* Dinka
* Nuer
* Reel

Luo languages|

* Anuak
* Belanda Bor
* Luwo
* Päri
* Shilluk
* Southern Luo
* Thuri

Southern Nilotic|

* Datooga
* Kalenjin
* Omotik

Template:Nilo-Saharan families

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