Old Nubian language

Old Nubian Language

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Old Nubian language

Old Nubian is an ancient variety of the Nubian languages

Nubian languages

The Nubian language group, according to the most recent research by Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst comprises the following varieties:# Nobiin language ....
, spoken until about the 15th century AD. It is ancestral to modern-day Nobiin

Nobiin language

Nobiin is a Northern Nubian languages of the Nilo-Saharan languages phylum. "Nobiin" is the genitive form of N??b?? "Nubian" and literally means " of the Nubians"....
and other Nubian languages spoken in Nubia

Nubia

Nubia is a region in Southern Egypt along the Nile and in what is now northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt....
. It is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
religious nature, written using a modified form of the Coptic

Coptic alphabet

The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is first Alphabetic Script used for the Egyptian Language....
(Greek

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
) script; the best known is The Martyrdom of Saint Menas
Saint Menas

Saint Menas , the Martyr and Wonder-worker, is one of the most well-known Egyptians saints in the East and the West, due to the many miracles that are attributed to his intercession and prayers....
.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Old Nubian language'

Start a new discussion about 'Old Nubian language'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Old Nubian is an ancient variety of the Nubian languages

Nubian languages

Nobiin language

Nubia

Christianity

Coptic alphabet

Greek alphabet

Meroitic language

The Meroitic language was spoken in Meroe and the Sudan during the Meroitic period and went extinct about 400. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: demotic, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and hieroglyphic, which was carved in stone or used for royal or religious documents....
and Ge'ez

Ge'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court....
.

Writing

Old Nubian is written with an uncial

Uncial

Uncial is a majuscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Byzantine Empire scribes. Uncial letters are written in either Greek, Latin, or Gothic....
variety of the Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
, extended with three Coptic

Coptic alphabet

Meroitic script

The Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroe/Kush....
; and /?/, thought to be a ligature

Ligature (typography)

In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components, and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms" where the specific shape of a letter depends on context such as surrounding letters or prox...
of two Greek gamma

Gamma

Gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet Gimel ....
s. Each letter could have a line drawn above it, when it was:

a vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
which formed a syllable by itself, or was preceded by one of l, n, r, or j;
a consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
with an i (sometimes unwritten) preceding it.

The sound /i/ could be written e, e?, ?, ?, or ?; /u/ was normally written ??. In diphthongs, a dieresis was sometimes used over ? to indicate the semivowel

Semivowel

Semivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllable vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the syllable nucleus of a syllable or mora ; they are not the most prominence part of the syllable....
y.

Geminate consonants were written double; long vowels were usually not distinguished from short ones. Tones were not marked.

Punctuation marks included a high dot •, sometimes substituted by a double backslash \\ , used roughly like an English period

Full stop

A full stop or period , is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of several different types of Sentence s in English language and many other languages....
or colon

Colon (punctuation)

The colon is a punctuation mark, consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line....
, a slash / used like a question mark

Question mark

The question mark , also known as an interrogation point, question point, query, or eroteme, is a punctuation that replaces the Full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence....
, and a double slash // sometimes used to separate verses.

Grammar

Noun

Old Nubian has no gender

Gender

Gender comprises a range of differences between man and woman, extending from the biological to the social. Biologically, the male gender is defined by the presence of a Y-chromosome, and its absence in the female gender....
, nor any article

Article (grammar)

An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the types of reference being made by the noun, and to specify the volume or numerical scope of that reference....
s. The noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
consists of a stem to which grammatical case

Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
suffix

Suffix

In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation of verbs....
es and postpositions are added; the main ones are:

-l nominative, marking the subject
Subject (grammar)

The subject is one of the two main constituent every sentence can be divided into, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle....
: eg diabolos-il "the devil (subj.)"; iskit-l "the earth (subj.)".
-n(a) genitive, marking the possessor: eg iart-na palkit-la "into the sea of thoughts".
-k(a) "directive", marking the direct or indirect object: eg Mikhaili-ka "Michael (obj.), to Michael"
-lo locative, meaning "at"
-la inessive, meaning "in(to)"
-do, meaning "on"
-dal meaning "with"

The most common plural is in -gu-; eg uru-gu-na "of kings", or gindette-gu-ka "thorns (object

Object (grammar)

An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence Predicate . It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb....
)", becoming -agui- in the predicative. Rarer plurals include -rigu- (eg mug-rigu-ka "dogs (obj.)" (predicative -regui-) and -pigu-.

Pronoun

The basic pronoun

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a Determiner , such as Wiktionary:you and Wiktionary:they in English language....
s are:

ai- "I"
ir- "you (singular)"
tar- "he, she, it"
er- "we (including you)"
u- "we (excluding you)"
ur- "you (plural)"
ter- "they"

Demonstratives include in- "this", man- "that"; interrogatives include ngai- "who?", min- "what?", islo "where?", iskal "how?".

Verb

The verb

Verb

In syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood and grammatical voice....
has five main forms: present

Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
, two different preterite

Preterite

The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place in the past. It is similar to the aorist in languages such as Greek language....
s, future

Future tense

In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
, and imperative

Imperative

Imperative can mean:*Imperative mood, a grammatical mood expressing commands, direct requests, and prohibitions*Imperative programming, a programming paradigm in computer science...
. For each of these, there are subjunctive and indicative forms. It conjugates according to person, eg for doll- "wish" in the present tense:

dollire "I wish"
dollina "you (singular) wish", "he, she, it wishes"
dolliro "we wish", "you (plural) wish"
dollirana "they wish"

Example text

Kitka gelgelosuannon Iisusi manyan trika• dolle polgara pessna• papo iskoelimme ikka.

Literally: "Rock and-when-they-rolled-away Jesus eye pair high raising he-said father I-thank you."

Translated: "And when they rolled away the rock, Jesus, raising his eyes high, said: Father, I thank you."

External links

Extended details on all the letters of the Old Nubian alphabet, especially the additional ones, can be found in by Michael Everson
Michael Everson

Michael Everson is a linguistics, Character encoding, typesetting, and font designer. His central area of expertise is with writing systems of the world, specifically in the representation of these systems in formats for computer and digital media....
and Stephen Emmel.