Nubian languages
The Nubian languages are spoken today in northern and western Sudan ( the former Nubia ) and in southern Egypt. Linguistically, they belong to the branch of Nilo-Saharan languages ostsudanischen language. The most important Nubian language is the Nobiin.
Structure
- Central Nubian Birked
- Dongolawi Kenuzi Dongola
- Kadaru - Ghulfan Ghulfan
- Kadaru
- Nobiin
- Midob
The modern Nubian
The modern Nubian is according to common opinion is divided in the Nilnubische, which is spoken in the Nubian Nile Valley, and in the Bergnubische, which is spoken in the western Sudanese province of Kordofan. There are also some minor dialectal variants of Bergnubischen in the co- located in the western Sudan region of Darfur.
According to this theory the Nilnubische is further divided into dialects Kenuzi ( spoken in Lower Nubia ), Nobiin ( spoken in southern Nubia and northern Upper Nubia ) and Dongolawi ( spoken in the central Upper Nubia ). Recent studies make these considerations against an alternative theory, according to which the Nobiin stands isolated, while the Kenuzi and Dongolawi the bergnubischen dialects are linguistically closer than the Nobiin. According to this theory the Kenuzi would be an island language, which was created by speaking the targeted settlement Dongolawi mercenaries in the Middle Ages in the then Egyptian- Nubian border area under the Fatimids.
At the written record of the modern Nubian dialects Arabic script is used.
The classic Nubian
Main article: Altnubische language
As a medieval precursor of modern Nobiin applies the classic Altnubisch, which was written in a variant of the Coptic script. For playback of some specific phonemes that do not occur in Coptic, served four borrowed from the Meroitic cursive additional characters. Texts on Altnubisch have survived mainly from Nubia, the medieval state Nobatia, as well as from the field of medieval Makuria in Upper Nubia. They are mostly Christian religious content; but were just recently, many profane texts, especially letters and contracts, excavated and published.
As a variant of the Altnubischen until today hardly known so-called Alwa inscriptions are to be considered, which were in südnubischen Soba on the Blue Nile, the capital of the medieval kingdom of Alwa, found. Again, a font was used, which was borrowed from the Coptic. However, the additional characters used for playback of not occurring in Coptic sounds did not come here from the Meroitic cursive script, but from the monumental Meroitic script. The linguistic position of the Alwa - inscriptions in comparison to the classical Altnubisch date, little is researched.
Linguistic characteristics
Grammatically include the Nubian to the agglutinative languages ; that is, the grammatical forms are formed by appending a number of prefixes and suffixes to the theoretical steady word stem. This rule is, however, softened by the pronounced tendency of the Nubian to vowel and consonant harmonization, which is reflected in a variety of complex Assimilierungsregeln. This can be the original root word, just with shorter words, often slurred beyond recognition, making the handling of Nubian dictionaries particularly complicated.