NUBIAN LANGUAGE AND WRITING. Nubian is the name given to the language of the Barabra or Nubians in the Nile valley, between Merawi, a few miles below the ancient Napata, and the First Cataract at Aswan. It has here two prin cipal dialects, the Mahass-Fadija being spoken in the central por tion, from a little south of the Third Cataract, and the Dongola Kenzi at either end of the region; the speech of these Barabra is now pervaded with Arabic words. Moreover, in the hills of Kordofan, dialects of Nubian are spoken by many small com munities amongst other languages only remotely akin, and are found westward as far as eastern Darfur. Nubian is without gender, agglutinative and mainly monosyllabic. Nubian roots are traceable in Ethiopian geographical names handed down by classical authors ; but perhaps the chief interest of the language is its use in the writings of the Nubian Church. Probably to
fortify their independence against Muslim encroachment, the Nubians adapted the Greek alphabet, with necessary additions from the Coptic and perhaps the Meroitic alphabets, to the pur pose of writing their own language. The rare examples of Nubian writing that have been discovered, besides graffiti and two legal documents, comprise portions of a lectionary, homilies and edify ing narratives, obviously translated from Greek and not from Coptic. The earliest dates from the end of the 8th century, the latest from the beginning of the i4th.
See H. N. Almquist, Nubische Studien im Sudan 1877-78 (ed. Zettersteen), Uppsala, 1911 (Bibl.) ; F. Ll. Griffith, The Nubian Texts of the Christian Period, Berlin, 1913 ; H. Junker and W. Czermak, Kordofan Texte im Dialekt von Gebel Dair, Vienna, 1913.