The History of Nubian civilization extends back to abouit 17,000 years (See Van Sertima: Egypt Revisited) { Pianke Nubiyang in THE RISE OF NUBIANISM

The study of old nubian and the publication of the texts discovered in different campaign's is still going on Language: The Kenuzi speak Kenuzi-Dongolawi while the Fedidja speak Fedidja-

Kenzi is spoken north of Mahas in Egypt while Dongolawi is spoken south of Mahas around Dongola. With population displacement due to the Aswan High Dam there are communities of Nubian speakers in Lower Egypt and in Eastern Sudan (Khashm el-Girba). Apart from these two distinct varieties spoken along the Nile, three other varieties existed

Birgid - originally spoken north of Nyala around Menawashei until the 1970s. The last surviving aged speakers were interviewed by Thelwall at this time. And some equally aged speakers on Gezira Aba just north of Kosti on the Nile south of Khartoum and interviewed by Thelwall in 1980." Old Nubian is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a Christian religious nature, written using a modified form of the Coptic (Greek) script. These documents range in date from the 8th to the 15th century A.D. Old Nubian is currently considered ancestral to modern Nobiin." Midob in and around the Malha volcanic crater in North Darfur." Hill Nubian - a group of closely related dialects spoken in various villages in the northern Nuba Mountains - in particular Dilling, Debri, and Kadaru

The old Nubian characterized by a writing system, was a unique language used in all the area, as many manuscripts found in many different places of Nubia testify. It uses the Coptic alphabet with the addition of other letters to write the typical Nubian sounds

Nubian language group, a Nilo- saharan subfamily which includes Nubiin, Kenuzi-Dongola,Midab and several related varieties in the northern part of the Nuba mountians in south Kordofan. A variety - Birgid was spoken ( at least until 1970) north of Nyala in Darfur but is now extinct .

Nubian-speakers live between Kom Ombo, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Aswan in Egypt, and ed-Debba, Sudan, about 180 miles (300 km) northwest of Khartoum, Sudan

The scientific study of the Old Nubian language started very late, in 1913 by Griffith' monumental edition of all available Nubian text then. This was followed by several studies of other scholars.

About fifty languages spoken in the Nuba Mountains (I am of course talking about the situation that persisted at least until the late 70s) we classify them into members of two or perhaps three language families - Nilo-Saharan and Kordofanian (sub-family of the Niger-Kordofanian family)

The Daju Language Groups consists of at least six varieties spread out over a wide area from Eastern Chad to the Nuba Mountains.

The Nile Nubian languages are part of the the Nilo-Saharan language family.Further they belong to the Eastern Sudanic group and from with the Darfur Nubian and Kordofan Nubian the Nubian language group.Within the Nile-Nubian languages we have branches: The Nobiin ( Sukot, Halfawi, Fiadikka ) and the Dongolawi / Kenzi . The distribution of Nile Nubian speaking people

The Nobiin (and later Dongolawi) came to the Nile from a centre of dispersion in Darfur-Kordofan which they occupied and controlled for perhaps 4000 years

The Kordofanian languages consist of four groups: Heiban, Talodi, Rashad and Katla - these names are based on their geographical centres (proposed by Thilo Schadeberg) and differ from names used in previous literature. The Kadugli Group was earlier classified by Greenberg as part of Kordofanian but removedfrom that relationship by Schadeberg and is currently considered probably part of Nilo-Saharan.

The Nubian languages make much more use of suffixes than of prefixes or infixes, especially in noun inflection. Nouns have forms for the nominative, vocative, objective, genitive, locative, in strumental, and ablative cases in some of the languages

Sub-Forums: English - Nubian alphabets

The African language are divided into four big language famillies.From north to south

Nubian music consisted in the beginning of a kind of poem, shar, composed using only five musical notes (Pentatonic rythm) and inspired from the war sounds of the Pharahos during the Ancient and Middle Kingdoms. The most used instruments were the tar, a kind of drum, the tambour, the daraboukka and the qirba, similar to a bagpipe. An important occasion for singing and dancing was, as said, the wedding party, which was accompanied by a background of music, ululation, clapping, drums, etc. Many dances were also performed during the seasons of sowing and harvest with the auspices of prosperity and plentiful crops. The music and songs of the modern Nubians have been very commercialized. They use the old Nubian melody with Arabic words . The Nile is an important component of the Nubian ( identity) so Nubian dances mimic the movement of the water in the Nile

What is the origin of modern African language and writing? Africa is now known as the continent with the greatest lingual diversity in the world.

The linguistic complexity of the Nuba Mountains (Southern Kordofan province, Sudan) has been known for over seventy years (Seligman 1910/11). Recent research into the detailed relationships of the forty-odd languages of this region has made it possible to speculate, with a lesser degree of uncertainty, on the patterns or migration and the time sequence implied by present distribution. Hypothesizing about the past situation in the Nuba Mountains involves balancing logical possibilities with circumstantial evidence

The Nubian language group, according to the most recent research by Bechhaus-Gerst comprises the following varieties: 1.Nobiin (previously known by the geographic terms Mahas or Fadicca/Fiadicca). 2.Kenzi-Dongolawi. Kenzi (or Kenuzi) is spoken north of Mahas in Egypt while Dongolawi is spoken south of Mahas around Dongola; they are generally considered two varieties of one language. With population displacement due to the Aswan High Dam there are communities of Nubian speakers in Lower Egypt and in Eastern Sudan (Khashm el-Girba). Apart from these two distinct varieties spoken along the Nile, three other varieties existed. 3.Midob (Meidob) in and around the Malha volcanic crater in North Darfur. 4.Birgid - originally spoken north of Nyala around Menawashei until the 1970s. The last surviving aged speakers were interviewed by Thelwall at this time. Some equally aged speakers on Gezira Aba just north of Kosti on the Nile south of Khartoum were interviewed by Thelwall in 1980. 5.Hill Nubian – a group of closely related dialects spoken in various villages in the northern Nuba Mountains – in particular Dilling, Debri, and Kadaru

Nobiin is a Northern Nubian language of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. "Nobiin" is the genitive form of Nòòbíí "Nubian" and literally means "(language) of the Nubians".

Nobiin is currently spoken along the banks of the Nile river in southern Egypt and northern Sudan by approximately 495,000 Nubians. Present-day Nobiin speakers are almost universally bilingual in local varieties of Arabic—Egyptian and Sudanese

Nubian language is the common feature that characterizes Nubian of today and it is the centre of their identity. Ethnologically this spoken language is divided into two main groups. Both language group bear a lot of lexical similarities and a good number of people of Dongola and Kunuz understand the Fadidja-Mahas which is the tongue of the majority of Nubians.

Multilingualism in Nubia was widespread4 and Nubian was not the only written language of the country in medieval times. Archeological finding in Qasr Ibrim (the administrative centre of Nobadia Kingdom during the Middle Ages) have helped to shed light on the languages used in Nubia

Meroitic was granted an official status. A new script was devised for the writing of the language with an alphabet of twenty-four characters. It is this alphabet, based on the Egyptian demotic signs, which was used throughout the Meroitic Empire south of the 1st cataract up to Soba.

In April 2009, TDSB Continuing Education launched the city's first Nubian language and culture class

A table to illustrate Nubian alphabets with examples in English and Arabic

Old Nubian had its source in the languages of the Noba nomads who occupied the Nile between the First and Third Cataracts and the Makorae nomads who occupied the land between the Third and Fourth Cataracts following the collapse of Meroë sometime in the 4th century AD.

Sub-Forums: old table of Nubian Alphabets, New table of Nubian Alphabets

proposed broad transcription for Kenzi- Dongolawi

Sub-Forums: Consonants, Vowels

Tables with some examples to explain Nubian alphabets

Sub-Forums: Letter A- B, Letter G- D, Letter E- F, Letter I - H, Letter K - L, Letter M - N, Letter O - U, Letter R - S, Letter T - Y, Letter SH - J, Letter CH - NG, Letter NY - W

Nubian -English Alphabets ( flash player)

How to write Nubian Language by using computer in your e- mail and messenger

English- Arabic - Nubian Dictionary by Youssef Sinbaag

Listen to Nubian Language

Listen and watch Nubian song in Nubian Language