Old Nubian is the name given to the written language used in medieval Nubia from the 8th to the 15th century A.D. 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 St. Menas. It is the oldest written sub-Saharan African language apart from Meroitic.

Writing

Old Nubian is written with an uncial variety of the Greek alphabet, extended with 3 Coptic letters - ϣ "sh", ϩ "h", and ϭ "j"- and 3 unique to Nubian, apparently derived from Meroitic: ng, ny, and w (not included in Unicode.) 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."

Bibliography

• Browne, Gerald M. (1982) Griffith's Old Nubian Lectionary. Rome/Barcelona.
• Browne, Gerald M. (1988) Old Nubian Texts from Qasr Ibrim I (with J.M.Plumley), London.
• Browne, Gerald M. (1989) Old Nubian Texts from Qasr Ibrim II. London.
• Browne, Gerald M. (1996) Old Nubian dictionary. Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium, vol. 562. Leuven: Peeters. ISBN 9068317873.
• Browne, Gerald M. (1997) Old Nubian dictionary - appendices. Leuven: Peeters. ISBN 9068319256
• Browne, Gerald M. (2002) A grammar of Old Nubian. Münich: LINCOM. ISBN 3895868930.
• Griffith, F. Ll. (1913) The Nubian Texts of the Christian Period. ADAW 8.
• Zyhlarz, Ernst (1928) Grundzüge der nubischen Grammatik im christlichen Frühmittelalter (Altnubisch): Grammatik, Texte, Kommentar und Glossar. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. 18, no. 1. Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft.