Hill Nubians are a group of
Nubian peoples
Nubian may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Nubia, a region along the Nile river in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan.
* Nubian people
*Nubian languages
*Anglo-Nubian goat, a breed of goat
* Nubian ibex
* , several ships of the Briti ...
who inhabit the northern
Nuba Mountains
The Nuba Mountains ( ar, جبال النوبة), also referred to as the Nuba Hills, is an area located in South Kordofan, Sudan. The area is home to a group of indigenous ethnic groups known collectively as the Nuba peoples. In the Middle Ages, ...
in
South Kordofan state,
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
. They speak the
Hill Nubian languages
The Hill Nubian languages, also called Kordofan Nubian, are a dialect continuum of Nubian languages spoken by the Hill Nubians in the northern Nuba Mountains of Sudan.
Classification
The Hill Nubian languages are generally classified as being i ...
. Despite their scattered presence and linguistic diversity, they all refer to themselves as ''Ajang'' and call their language ''Ajangwe'', "the Ajang language".
Origin
Canadian linguist Robin Thelwall believes that the Hill Nubians probably didn't migrate to the Nuba Mountains from
Nubia
Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...
, considering their linguistic divergence, and instead probably reached the Nuba Mountains from central
Kordofan
Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory di ...
during the earliest
Nubian
Nubian may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Nubia, a region along the Nile river in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan.
*Nubian people
*Nubian languages
*Anglo-Nubian goat, a breed of goat
* Nubian ibex
* , several ships of the Britis ...
migrations.
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
believes that any split between Hill and Nile Nubian must have occurred at least 2,500 years before present.
See also
*
Languages of the Nuba Mountains
The Nuba Mountains, located in the West Kordofan and South Kordofan states in the south of Sudan, are inhabited by a diverse set of populations (collectively known as Nuba peoples) speaking various languages not closely related to one another.
Th ...
References
Nubian people
Ethnic groups in Sudan
{{Sudan-ethno-group-stub