Old Nubian is an ancient variety of
NubianThe Nubian language group, according to the most recent research by Bechhaus-Gerst comprises the following varieties:# Nobiin ....
, spoken until about the 15th century AD. It is ancestral to modern-day
NobiinNobiin is a Northern Nubian language of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. "Nobiin" is the genitive form of Nòòbíí "Nubian" and literally means " of the Nubians"....
and related to other Nubian languages such as Dongolawi. It was used throughout the medieval
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
kingdom of
MakuriaThe Kingdom of Makuria was a kingdom located in what is today Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. It was one of a group of Nubian kingdoms that emerged during the decline of the Aksumite Empire, which had dominated the region from approximately 50 AD to AD 950...
and its satellite Nobadia. The language is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a religious nature, written using a modified form of the
CopticThe 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...
script; the best known is
The Martyrdom of Saint MenasSaint Menas , the Martyr and Wonder-worker, is one of the most well-known Egyptian saints in the East and the West, due to the many miracles that are attributed to his intercession and prayers...
.
History
Old Nubian had its source in the languages of the
Noba-NOBA:Noba is a term found in a number of historical sources discussing ancient and Medieval Nub. Its exact meaning is uncertain, with ancient sources themselves seeming confused about the region south of Egypt...
nomads who occupied the
NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
between the First and Third
CataractThe cataracts of the Nile are shallow stretches of the river between Aswan and Khartoum where the water's surface is broken by numerous small boulders and stones protruding from the river bed, as well as many small rocky islets...
s and the Makorae nomads who occupied the land between the Third and Fourth Cataracts following the collapse of
MeroëThe Kingdom of Kush or Cush was an ancient African state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. It was one of the earliest civilizations to develop in the Nile River Valley...
sometime in the 4th century AD. The Makorae were a separate tribe who eventually conquered or inherited the lands of the Noba: they established a
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
-influenced state called
MakuriaThe Kingdom of Makuria was a kingdom located in what is today Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. It was one of a group of Nubian kingdoms that emerged during the decline of the Aksumite Empire, which had dominated the region from approximately 50 AD to AD 950...
which administered the Noba lands separately as the
eparchyEparchy is an anglicized Greek word , authentically latinized as eparchia and loosely translating as 'rule over something', but has the following specific meanings, both in political history and in the hierarchy of the Eastern Churches....
of Nobadia. Nobadia was converted to Monophysite Christianity by the priests Julian and Longinus, and thereafter received its bishops from the Pope of Alexandria.
Old Nubian is one of the oldest written African languages but was used only sporadically. The civil administration and legal records tended to employ
GreekKoine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity . Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Patristic, Common, Biblical or New Testament Greek...
, while the church leadership (originally all Egyptians) were fluent in
CopticCoptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the first century...
. Over time, more and more Old Nubian began to appear in both secular and religious documents, and the language also influenced the use of Greek and Coptic in the region (eg, some confusion of Greek grammatical genders & use of variant verb tenses). 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
Old Nubian is written in an
uncialUncial is a majuscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters are written in either Greek, Latin, or Gothic.-Development:...
variant of the
Coptic alphabetThe 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...
, including three unique letters: /ɲ/ and /w/ are both apparently derived from
Meroitic scriptThe Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush. It was developed sometime during the Napatan Period , and first appears in the 2nd century BCE...
; /ŋ/ is thought to be a
ligatureIn 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...
of two Greek
gammaGamma uppercase Γ, lowercase γ; ) 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 letter Gimel . Letters that arose from Gamma include the Roman C and G and the Cyrillic letters Ge Г and Ghe Ґ.In Modern Greek, it...
s.
Old Nubian made extensive use of
nomina sacraNomina sacra means "sacred names" in Latin, and can be used to refer to traditions of abbreviated writing of several frequently occurring divine names or titles in early Greek language Holy Scripture...
. Abbreviation was also used more generally throughout the language: in addition to nomina sacra formulas, a line over a letter could indicate:
- a 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. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
which formed a syllable by itself, or was preceded by one of ⲗ, ⳟ, ⲣ, or ϫ;
- a 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 ε, ει, η, ι, or υ; /u/ was normally written ου. In diphthongs, a dieresis was sometimes used over ι to indicate the
semivowelSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
y. Geminate consonants were written double; long vowels were usually not distinguished from short ones.
Modern Nobiin is a tonal language: if Old Nubian was as well, the values were not marked.
Punctuation marks included a high dot •, sometimes substituted by a double backslash \\ , used roughly like an English
periodA full stop or period is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of several different types of sentences in English and many other languages...
or
colonThe colon is a punctuation mark, consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line.-Usage:As with many other punctuation marks, the usage of colon varies among languages and, for a given language, among historical periods...
, a slash / used like a
question markThe question mark , also known as an interrogation point, interrogation mark, question point, query, or eroteme, is a punctuation mark that replaces the period at the end of an interrogative sentence...
, and a double slash // sometimes used to separate verses.
Noun
Old Nubian has no
genderGender commonly refers to the set of characteristics that humans perceive as distinguishing between male and female entities, extending from one's biological sex to, in humans, one's social role or gender identity. As a term, "gender" has more than one valid definition...
, nor any
articleAn article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun, and may also specify the volume or numerical scope of that reference. there are only three articles, a, an and and. The articles in the English language are the and a...
s. The
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open 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 caseIn 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 possessor. Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns change their form to reflect their case. Others indicate cases in...
suffixIn 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 conjugation of verbs...
es and postpositions are added; the main ones are:
- -l nominative, marking the subject
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle. The other constituent is the predicate...
: 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 (
objectAn object in grammar is a sentence element and is often 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
pronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English...
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
verbkalleah hit meIn 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 tense, aspect, mood and voice...
has five main forms:
presentThe present tense is the tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* an occurrence in the near future; or* an action that occurred in the past and continues up to the present....
, two different
preteriteThe preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place in the past.-English:...
s,
futureIn 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 .-Expressions of future tense:Languages can employ various...
, and
imperativeImperative can mean:*Imperative mood, a grammatical mood expressing commands, direct requests, and prohibitions * A morphological item expressing commands, direct requests, and prohibitions...
. 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
- ⲕⲧ̅ⲕⲁ ⲅⲉⲗⲅⲟ̅ⲥⲟⲩⲁⲛⲟⲛ ⲓ̈ⲏ̅ⲥⲟⲩⲥⲓ ⲛⲁ⋊αν τρικα• ⲇⲟⲗⲗⲉ ⲡⲟⲗⲅⲁⲣⲁ ⲡⲉⲥⲥⲛⲁ• ⲡⲁⲡⲟ ⲥ̅ⲕⲟⲉⲗⲙ̅ⲙⲉ ⲉⲕ̅ⲕⲁ
- 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