Friday 10 February 2012

Nubians

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_people

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Nubian people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nubians
Total population
1.7 million speakers of Nubian languages (SILestimate as of 1996)
Regions with significant populations
 Sudan
 Egypt
Languages
Religion
The Nubians Pharaohs (Arabicنوبي‎, Nuubi) are an ethnic group originally from Sudan, and Egypt now inhabiting North Africa and some parts of East Africa.
The Nubian people in Sudan inhabit the region between Wadi Halfa in the north and Aldaba in the south. The main Nubian groups from north to south are the HalfaweyenSikutMahas, and Danagla. They speak different dialects of the Nubian language.
In ancient times Nubians were dark skinned. They are often shown with hooped earrings and with braided or extended hair.[1] Ancient Nubians were famous for their vast wealth, their trade between Central Africa and the lower Nile valley civilizations, including Egypt, their skill and precision with the bow, their 23-letter alphabet, the use of deadly poison on the heads of their arrows, their great military, their advanced civilization, and their century-long rule over the united upper and lower Egyptian kingdoms.[2]

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[edit]History

A Nubian circa 1900
Nubians are the people of southern Egypt and northern Sudan, settling along the banks of the Nile from Aswan. Their Nubian language is anEastern Sudanic language, part of the Nilo-Saharan phylum.
The Old Nubian language is attested from the 8th century, and is thus the oldest recorded language of Africa outside of the Afro-Asiatic group. It was the language of the Noba nomads who occupied the Nile between the First and Third Cataracts and the Makorae nomads who occupied the land between the Third and Fourth Cataracts following the collapse of the Kingdom of Kush sometime in the 4th century CE. The Makoraewere a separate tribe who eventually conquered or inherited the lands of the Noba: they established a Byzantine-influenced state called theKingdom of Makuria which administered the Noba lands separately as the eparchy of Nobadia. Nobadia was converted to Miaphysitism by the Orthodox priest Julian and Bishop Longinus of Constantinople, and thereafter received its bishops from the Pope of Alexandria.

[edit]Present day

The influx of Arabs to Egypt and Sudan had contributed to the suppression of the Nubian identity following the collapse of the last Nubian kingdom in 1900. A major part of the modern Nubian population were Arabised. The Jaa'leen-the majority of Northern Sudanese and some Donglawes in Sudan, Kenuz and Koreskos in Egypt all claimed to be Arabs. However the vast majority of the Nubians converted to Islam, and Arabic became their main language, in addition to their indigenous old Nubian language. The unique characteristics of Nubians are their culture(dress, dances, traditions and music) as well as their indigenous language which is a common feature of most Nubians.

[edit]Notable Nubians

[edit]References

  1. ^ Dig Nubia – Image
  2. ^ Dig Nubia – Nubia: Land of the Bow
  • Rouchdy, Aleya (1991). Nubians and the Nubian Language in Contemporary Egypt: A Case of Cultural and Linguistic Contact. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004091971.
  • Valbelle, Dominique; Charles Bonnet (2007). The Nubian Pharaohs: Black Kings on the Nile. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 977416010X.
  • Warnock Fernea, Elizabeth; Robert A. Fernea (1990). Nubian Ethnographies. Chicago: Waveland Press Inc.. ISBN 0881334804.
  • Black Pharaohs - National Geographic Feb 2008

[edit]External links

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