Old Nubian is an extinct Nubian language, attested in writing from the 8th to the 15th century AD. It is ancestral to modern-day Nobiin and closely related to Dongolawi and Kenzi. It was used throughout the kingdom of Makuria, including the eparchy of Nobatia. The language is preserved in more than a hundred pages of documents and inscriptions, both of a religious, and related to the state and private life, written using an adaptation of the Coptic alphabet.
History
Old Nubian had its source in the languages of the Noba nomads who occupied the Nile between the first and third cataracts of the Nile and the Makurian nomads who occupied the land between the third and fourth cataracts following the collapse of Meroë sometime in the 4th century. The Makurians were a separate tribe who eventually conquered or inherited the lands of the Noba: they established a Byzantine-influenced state called Makuria which administered the Noba lands separately as the eparchy of Nobatia. Nobatia was converted to the Miaphysite Christianity by Julian of Halicarnassus and Longinus, and thereafter received its bishops from the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Old Nubian is one of the oldest written African languages and appears to have been adopted from the 10th–11th century as the main language for the civil and religious administration of Makuria. Besides Old Nubian, Koine Greek was widely used, especially in religious contexts, while Coptic mainly predominates in funerary inscriptions. Over time, more and more Old Nubian began to appear in both secular and religious documents, while several grammatical aspects of Greek, including the case, agreement, gender, and tense morphology underwent significant erosion. The consecration documents found with the remains of archbishop Timotheos suggest, however, that Greek and Coptic continued to be used into the late 14th century, by which time Arabic was also in widespread use.
Writing
The script in which nearly all Old Nubian texts have been written is a slanted uncial variant of the Coptic alphabet, originating from the White Monastery in Sohag. The alphabet included three additional letters and , and , the first two deriving from the Meroitic alphabet. The presence of these characters suggest that although the first written evidence of Old Nubian dates to the 8th century, the script must have already been developed in the 6th century, following the collapse of the Meroitic state. Additionally, Old Nubian used the variant for the Coptic letter.
Character
Transliteration
a
b
g
d
e
i
z
ē
th
y
k
l
m
n
x
o
Phonetic value
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Character
Transliteration
ou
p
r
s
t
u
ph
kh
ps
ō
š
h
j
ŋ
ñ
w
Phonetic value
The characters only appear in Greek loanwords. Gemination was indicated by writing double consonants; long vowels were usually not distinguished from short ones. Old Nubian featured two digraphs: and . A diaeresis over was used to indicate the semivowel. In addition, Old Nubian featured a supralinear stroke, which could indicate:
a vowel that formed the beginning of a syllable or was preceded by ;
Modern Nobiin is a tonal language; if Old Nubian was tonal as well, the tones were not marked. Punctuation marks included a high dot •, sometimes substituted by a double backslash \\, which was used roughly like an English period or colon; a slash /, which was used like a question mark; and a double slash //, which was sometimes used to separate verses.
Grammar
Nouns
Old Nubian has no gender. The noun consists of a stem to which derivational suffixes may be added. Plural markers, case markers, postpositions, and the determiner are added on the entire noun phrase, which may also comprise adjectives, possessors, and relative clauses.
Determination
Old Nubian has one definite determiner. The precise function of this morpheme has been a matter of controversy, with some scholars proposing it as nominative case or subjective marker. Both the distribution of the morpheme and comparative evidence from Meroitic, however, point to a use as determiner.
Case
Old Nubian has a nominative-accusativecase system with four structural cases determining the core arguments in the sentence, as well as a number of lexical cases for adverbial phrases.
Structural Cases
Nominative
–
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Lexical Cases
Locative
Allative
Superessive
Subessive
Comitative
Number
The most common plural marker is, which always precedes case marking. There are a few irregular plurals, such as, pl. "man";, pl. "child." Furthermore, there are traces of separate animate plural forms in , which are textually limited to a few roots, e.g. "Christians"; "dogs."
Pronouns
Old Nubian has several sets of pronouns and subject clitics are the following, of which the following are the main ones:
Person
Independent Pronoun
Subject Clitic
I
you
he/she/it
we
we
you
they
There are two demonstrative pronouns:, pl. "this" and, pl. "that." Interrogative words include "who?"; "what?"; and a series of question words based on the root.
Verbs
The Old Nubian verbal system is by far the most complex part of its grammar, allowing for valency, tense, mood, aspect, person and pluractionality to be expressed on it through a variety of suffixes. The main distinction between nominal and verbal predicates in a main clause versus a subordinate clause is indicated by the presence of the predicate marker. The major categories, listing from the root of the verb to the right, are as follows:
Valency
Transitive
Causative
Inchoative
Passive
Pluractionality
Aspect
Perfective
Habitual
Intentional
Tense
Present
Past 1
Past 2
Person
This can be indicated by a three different series of subject clitics, which are obligatory only in certain grammatical contexts.
