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Old Nubian language

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   A page from an Old Nubian translation of Liber Institutionis Michaelis
   Archangelis from the 9th-10th century AD, found at Qasr Ibrim, now at
   the British Museum. The name of Michael appears in red.
   Enlarge
   A page from an Old Nubian translation of Liber Institutionis Michaelis
   Archangelis from the 9th-10th century AD, found at Qasr Ibrim, now at
   the British Museum. The name of Michael appears in red.

   Old Nubian is the name given to the written language used in medieval
   Nubia from the 8th to the 15th century AD. It is an ancient variety of
   the Nubian languages, which is still spoken in the area; in particular,
   it is probably ancestral to the modern-day Nobiin variety. It is
   preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a
   Christian religious nature, written using a modified form of the Coptic
   ( Greek) script; the best known is The Martyrdom of Saint Menas. It is
   the oldest written sub-Saharan African language apart from Meroitic and
   Ge'ez.

Writing

   Old Nubian is written with an uncial variety of the Greek alphabet,
   extended with three Coptic letters — ϣ "sh", ϩ "h", and ϭ "j" — and
   three unique to Nubian: ⳡ "ny" and ⳣ "w", apparently derived from
   Meroitic; and ⳟ "ng", thought to be a ligature of two Greek gammas.
   Each letter could have a line drawn above it, when it was:
     * a vowel which formed a syllable by itself, or was preceded by one
       of l, n, r, or j;
     * a consonant 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 a semivowel 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 or colon, a
   slash / used like a question mark, and a double slash // sometimes used
   to separate verses.

Grammar

Noun

   Old Nubian has no gender, nor any articles. The noun consists of a stem
   to which grammatical case suffixes and postpositions are added; the
   main ones are:
     * -l nominative, marking the subject: 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 commonest plural is in -gu-; eg uru-gu-na "of kings", or
   gindette-gu-ka "thorns ( object)", becoming -agui- in the predicative.
   Rarer plurals include -rigu- (eg mug-rigu-ka "dogs (obj.)" (predicative
   -regui-) and -pigu-.

Pronoun

   The basic pronouns 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 has five main forms: present, two different preterites,
   future, and imperative. 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

   κτ̄κα γελγελο̄ςουανον ῑη̄ςουςι να⋊αν τρικα• δολλε πολγαρα πεςςνα• παπο
   ς̄κοελμ̄με εκ̄κα

   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."

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