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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). Of
course in addition there is Arabic which could not have been
spoken in the area prior to the Muslim invasions of Egypt in the
700s (Common Era) or the first century AH and there are also
speakers of Fulani and some other West African languages. All
the other languages of the Mountains well predate that period
and in most cases were spoken there from time immemorial. 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 Kordofanian sub-groups are
located in the southern and eastern areas of the Nuba Mountains.
The Kadugli Group is located in the south east central fringe
area near Kadugli. |
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The rest of the Nuba languages are classified as
part of a major sub-group of Nilo-Saharan called East Sudanic.
Relatives to these languages outside the Mountains include the
various Nilotic groups and some smaller groups including Tama of
Darfur, Nera of Eritrea and the Jebel groups of the Upper Blue
Nile.
The "Hill Nubian" and Daju languages spoken in the Mountains
have their major relatives outside the Mountains and we can
reconstruct some details of their history and as a result
propose that they each came into the Nuba Mountains to settle
among the existing Nuba populations.
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. We know that there were
Nubian speakers on the Nile at least as early as the 500s CE and
probably much earlier. The fact that the Hill Nubian languages
have words for the days of the week dating back to Christian
Nubian indicates that these languages were in contact at least
during the Christian Nubian period which probably covers 500 CE
- 1400 CE. This does not necessarily mean that the Hill Nubians
did more than expand from central Kordofan into the Nuba
Mountains during the period of Nubian political dominance from
Aswan to Kosti (at least). But given the location of the Hill
Nubian speakers (Dair, Dilling, Karko etc) along the NE edge of
the Mountains it appears that they were "incomers" settling
among the existing Nyima and Temein groups who were there before
them, at least.
The Daju Language Groups consists of at least six varieties
spread out over a wide area from Eastern Chad to the Nuba
Mountains. We know that Southern Darfur was the centre of a Daju
state perhaps as early as 1200 CE which was later displaced by
the Tunjur and then the Fur who ruled from the Jebel Marra
range. There are various traditions of Daju dispersion including
a number of myths celebrating Ahmad el-Daj. Whatever the case,
it is clear that the Daju controlled the area between southern
Jebel Marra and perhaps as far east as the western edges of the
Nuba Mountains. The Shatt and Liguri who are now well inside the
Nuba Mts and north-east of Kadugli have been separated from the
rest of the Daju for a long time (perhaps as much as 2000
years). The Daju of Dar el-Kabira and Lagawa are much more
closely related linguistically to the Nyala and then to the Dar
Sila Daju. This makes us think that there were two periods of
Daju movement east, the first by the Shatt and Liguri and the
second and perhaps related to the expansion and dominance by the
South Darfur Daju, by the Lagawa Daju.
The place of the Nile-Nubian within the African Languages
The African language are divided into four big language
famillies.From north to south they are :
- Afro-Asian languages ( Semi-
Hamitic,Berber, Cushite,Hamitic,Tschadic
-Nilo-Saharan languages (
Kanuri,Dinka,Shillk,Nubian
-Niger-Kordofanic languages ( Bantu
languages { Suaheli,Zulu,Ful,Bambara
- Khoisan languages (
Hottentotts,Bushmen
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
Nile Nubian speaking people are traditionally found in the Nile
Valley of Upper Egypt and north Sudan-between Aswan and
al-Debba. In addition to this region there are speakers in the
two resettlement areas, in Egypt in the vicinity of Kom Ombo and
in Sudan in New Halfa ( or Khashm il-Girba) on the Atabara river
near the Sudanese-Ethiopian border. Also there are Nubians in
Khartoum and the bigger cities of Egypt, such as Cairo,
Alexanderia ,Ismaelia and Suez.
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