| Dongolawi | |
|---|---|
| Andaandi | |
| Native to | Sudan |
| Region | Nile River |
| Ethnicity | Danagla |
Native speakers | 35,000 (2023)[1] |
| Coptic script (Old Nubian variant) Latin alphabet Arabic alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dgl |
| Glottolog | dong1288 |
Dongolawi is aNubian language of northernSudan. It is spoken by a minority of theDanagla people in theNile Valley, from roughly south ofKerma upstream to the bend in the Nile nearal Dabbah, Sudan.
Dongolawi is an Arabic term based on the town ofOld Dongola, the centre of the historic Christian kingdom ofMakuria (6th to 14th century). Today'sDongola was founded during the 19th century on the western side of the Nile. The Dongolawi call their languageAndaandi[andaːndi] "the language of our home".
Nearly all Dongolawi speakers are also speakers ofSudanese Arabic, the lingua franca of Sudan. Arabic–Dongolawi bilingualism is replacive in the sense that Dongolawi is threatened by complete replacement by Arabic (Jakobi 2008).
Dongolawi is closely related toKenzi (Mattokki), spoken in southern Egypt. They were once considered dialects of a single language,Kenzi-Dongolawi. More recent research recognises them as distinct languages without a "particularly close genetic relationship."[2] Apart from these two languages spoken along the Nile, three extinct varieties were included under Kenzi-Dongolawi.[citation needed]
