Nubian Graffiti Messages and the History of Writing in the Sudanese Nile Basin

NUBIAN GRAFFITI MESSAGES AND THE HISTORY OF WRITING IN THE SUDANESE NILE BASIN Alex de Voogt & Hans-Jörg Döhla History of Writing in the Sudanese Nile Basin The Sudanese Nile basin has a long history of writing part of which con- cerns a group of Nilo-Saharan languages, classifĳied by Claude Rilly (2004) as the North Eastern Sudanic branch. The earliest record of these languages is found in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing in which, as early as the Kerma period around 2500 BC, Meroitic names can be identifĳied for local rulers of the Kerma state. More signifĳicant is the development of an inde- pendent Meroitic script that developed ca. 300 BC and continued no later than the fĳifth century AD. This writing system was deciphered by Grifffĳith (1911) but the language it represents cannot yet be fully understood. A few centuries after the disappearance of Meroitic writing, the Nubi- ans in Sudan started using a language and script known as Old Nubian. This script is largely based on the Coptic script and its texts have reli- gious Christian content. Although not every aspect of the language is understood, Old Nubian is clearly a close neighbour to both the Meroitic language and some of the later Nubian languages spoken in the region. Between the end of the Meroitic script in the fĳifth century and the start of Old Nubian writing in the eighth or ninth century, there were other scripts in the region but they were not designed for a Nubian language. The Meroitic script existed next to Greek texts and Egyptian (Ptolemaic) writing, the latter either in Hieroglyphic, Demotic or Hieratic form. Coptic came about in the second century in Egypt and gained more prominence around the time of the Arab conquest in the seventh century. Latin and Latin script were also present although few Romans ever lived in Nubia. In other words, both Meroitic and Old Nubian were developed at a time that many scripts of diffferent languages appeared in the region. Egypt and parts of Sudan were conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century and this eventually made the Arabic script replace most if not all other scripts in the region by the tenth century. Later conquests by Otto- mans added another language written in Arabic script. Only British rule in the nineteenth century saw the introduction again of a Latin alphabet 54 alex de voogt & hans-jörg döhla and for the instruction of English in Sudanese schools, this continues until the present. Today’s languages that are still related to previous written Nubian languages have in some cases a documented grammar and phonology for which an alphabet was developed by linguists but not necessarily introduced to the speakers of the language. On the contrary, the Arabization of northern Sudan has introduced the Arabic language at the expense of the local languages. Even though these languages are not taught, they con- tinue to be spoken. Individual attempts to develop a script for these languages have been frequent but remained largely unsuccessful and literacy is limited to Arabic (Hashim 2004). The Development of Writing Meroitic and Old Nubian scripts were developed in the context of several other writing systems and they borrowed both signs, values of signs and to some extent the system of signs from neighbouring scripts. Meroitic has clear examples of Demotic in its cursive script and Egyptian Hieroglyph- ics in its Hieroglyphic variation. Old Nubian has borrowed mostly from Coptic and Greek. Neither in the case of Meroitic nor in the case of Old Nubian was an existing script applied to a Nubian language but, instead, a new script was developed. The application of an existing script to another language, which is particularly common with alphabetization projects in Africa, uses signs and sign values from one system only and adapts the system to accommodate specifĳic phonemes. Rarely are new signs necessary, no matter how unusual the sounds. In most cases it is possible to adapt an existing script in such a way that it can represent another language. It is even known that Chinese, Meso-American and Cuneiform scripts have applied their complex systems to other and unrelated languages. In the light of the above, today’s speakers of Nubian languages in the Sudanese Nile valley have at least four options. They can remain illiter- ate and write Arabic when writing is required. They can develop a writing system of their own, which has happened at least twice before with Old Nubian and Meroitic. They can adapt a Roman alphabet developed by linguists and other individuals. Or, they can apply the regional Arabic script to Nubian. Since there is no offfĳicial encouragement to even speak Nubian, the way in which to write their language is left to the speakers themselves..

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