Nobiin
| Nobiin | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Sudan , Egypt | |
| speaker | approx. 295,000 in Sudan, approx. 200,000 in Egypt (as of 1996) | |
| Linguistic classification |
||
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 |
fia |
|
The Nobiin (with a tone name : Nòbíin ; lit .: "des Nubians [language]") is the most important of the Nubian languages , which in turn belong to the East Sudanese branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family .
It is also included in the subgroup of "Nile Nubian" (for more details on the structure, see the article on the Nubian languages).
Linguistic situation
Dialects of the Nobiin are Mahas and Fiyadikka .
Old Nubian is considered to be the medieval precursor of Nobiin .
Nobiin speakers today almost all use Arabic in its local varieties as a second language .
Nobiin is written with Arabic , Latin and even occasionally with old Nubian letters , but there is no standardized orthography .
Linguistic characteristics
Nobiin is a tonal language with two different pitches, high and low:
- Treble : áy "heart", úr "her"
- Bass : ày "I", ùr "head"
With long vowels , the combination of the two can result in a falling tone:
- níìl “I drink” as opposed to
- níil “Nil”, where the long vowel has a high tone
The verb becomes u. a. marks the person (the subject ).
The basic word order is subject-object-verb .
Basic vocabulary words
| Word meaning | Nobiin | Word meaning | Nobiin |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | ay | big | dawwi, farij, nassi |
| you | ir | small | kuduud |
| he she it | tar | eat | kabir |
| we | uu | drink | niil |
| her | ur (i) | sleep | neerir |
| she ( plural ) | ter / teri (i) | to die | diil |
| who? | naay | go | juul, nogir |
| What? | min | come | kiil |
| human | aadem | give | tar |
| man | id, ogjil | to take | stupid |
| woman | een | speak | bannyir |
| head | ur | love | dollir |
| eye | maany | one | wee / weel / weer |
| ear | ukki | two | uwwo |
| nose | soring | three | tisko / tusko |
| mouth | ag | four | kemso |
| tooth | niid | five | diji |
| tongue | nar | six | gorjo |
| heart | ay | seven | colod |
| hand | eddi | eight | idwo (o) |
| foot | ooy | nine | oskod (i) |
| water | aman | ten | dime |
| Fire | i (i) g | twenty | aroo |
| Sun | masha | hundred | - |
| moon | unatti | thousand | - |
For the verbs, the form of the first person singular present active is given.
literature
- Karl Richard Lepsius : Nubian grammar. With an introduction about the peoples and languages of Africa . Hertz, Berlin 1880.
- Aleya Rouchdy: Nubians and the Nubian language in contemporary Egypt . Brill, Leiden u. a. 1991.
- Roland Werner: Grammar of Nobiin (Nilnubian) . Buske, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-87118-851-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ after Werner (1987), see literature