TheNubi language (also calledKi-Nubi,Arabic:كي-نوبي,romanized: kī-nūbī) is aSudanese Arabic-basedcreole language spoken inUganda aroundBombo, and inKenya aroundKibera, by theUgandan Nubians, many of whom are descendants ofEmin Pasha'sSudanese soldiers who were settled there by theBritish colonial administration. It was spoken by about 15,000 people inUganda in 1991 (according to the census), and an estimated 10,000 in Kenya; another source estimates about 50,000 speakers as of 2001. 90% of thelexicon derives fromArabic,^[2] but the grammar has been simplified,^[3] as has the sound system.Nairobi has the greatest concentration of Nubi speakers.^[4] Nubi has the prefixing, suffixing and compounding processes also present in Arabic.^[5]

Many Nubi speakers areKakwa who came from the Nubian region, first intoEquatoria, and from there southwards into Uganda and theDemocratic Republic of the Congo. They rose to prominence under Ugandan PresidentIdi Amin, who was Kakwa.^[6][7]

Jonathan Owens argues that Nubi constitutes a major counterexample toDerek Bickerton's theories ofcreole language formation, showing "no more than a chance resemblance to Bickerton's universal creole features" despite fulfilling perfectly the historical conditions expected to lead to such features.^{[citation needed]}Scholars (Sebit, 2023) have suggested that the Nubi Language was the main point of unity among the Nubi community in east Africa, to survive the hardship they experienced from different community components.

Sources:^[4][2]

There are five vowels in Nubi. Vowels are not distinguished by length except in at least two exceptions from Kenyan Nubi (which are not present in Ugandan dialects) wherebara means"outside" and is an adverb whilebaara means"the outside" and is a noun, and also wheresaara meaning"bewitch" is compared tosara meaning"herd, cattle". Despite this, there is a tendency for vowels in stressed syllables to be registered as long vowels.^[2]

Each of the vowels has multipleallophones and the exact sound of the vowel depends on the surrounding consonants.^[2]

Sources:^[4][2]

Speakers may useStandard Arabic phonemes for words for which the Arabic pronunciation has been learned. Theretroflex version of the /r/ sound may also occur and some dialects use /l/ in its place.Geminates are very unusual in Nubi. These less common phonemes are shown in brackets.^[4][2]

Ineke Wellens gives the following orthography for Nubi where it differs from the IPA symbols: /ʃ/ = sh; /tʃ/ = ch; /dʒ/ = j; /ɲ/ = ny; /w/ = w or u; /j/ = y or i; /θ/ = th; /ð/ = dh; /x/ = kh; /ħ/ = ḥ.^[2]

Syllables typically have a CV, VC, V or CVC structure with VC only occurring in initial syllables. Final and initial CC occur only in a few specific examples such asskul which means"school" orsems which means"sun".^[4]

Stress can change the meaning of words for examplesaba means"seven" or"morning" depending on whether the stress is on the first or second syllables respectively. Vowels are often omitted in unstressed, final syllables and sometime even the stressed final"u" in the passive form may be deleted after"m", "n", "l", "f" or"b". This can cause syllables to be realigned even across words.^[4]

Nouns areinflected bynumber only (taking a singular or plural form) although for most nouns this does not represent amorphological change. Jonathan Owens gives 5 broadinflectional categories of nouns:^[4]

1. Nouns which undergo a stress shift when the plural is formed.
2. Nouns which undergoapophony.
3. Nouns which take a suffix and undergo a stress shift in the plural form.
4. Nouns which form the plural bysuppletion
5. Bantuloan-words which take different prefixes in the singular and plural forms

The table below shows examples of each type of pluralisation. The apostrophe has been placed before the stressed syllable:^[4]

¹Nuswan may be supplemented by a suffix as if it were type 3, thus,nuswana could also mean"women".^[4]

Adjectives follow the noun and some adjectives have singular and plural forms which must agree with the noun. Adjectives may also take the prefixesal,ali,ab orabu which mark them ashabitual. Possessor nouns follow the possessed, with a particleta placed in between. In the case ofinalienable possession the particle is omitted.^[4]

• Bimbashi Arabic

• Boretzky, Norbert (1988). "Zur grammatischen Struktur des Nubi". In Boretzky, Norbert; Enninger, Werner; Stolz, Thomas (eds.).Beiträge zum 4. Essener Kolloquium über 'Sprachkontakt, Sprachwandel, Sprachwechsel, Sprachtod' vom 9. und 10. Oktober 1987 an der Universität Essen [Contributions to the 4th Essen Symposium on 'Language Contact, Language Change, Language Shift, Language Death' Held at the University of Essen on 9-10 October 1987]. Bochum-Essener Beiträge zur Sprachwandelforschung. Vol. 5. Bochum: Brockmeyer. pp. 45–88.
• Heine, Bernd (1982).The Nubi Language of Kibera – an Arabic Creole. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
• Luffin, Xavier (2004).Kinubi Texts. Munich: Lincom Europa.ISBN 9783895868351.
• Luffin, Xavier (2004). "Les verbes d'état, d'existence et de possession en kinubi (créole de base arabe)".Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik.43. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag:43–66.JSTOR 43525773.
• Luffin, Xavier (2005).Un créole arabe : le kinubi de Mombasa, Kenya. Lincom Studies in Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Vol. 7. Munich: Lincom Europa.
• Musa-Wellens, I. (1994).A descriptive sketch of the verbal system of the Nubi language, spoken in Bombo, Uganda (MA thesis). University of Nijmegen.
• Nakao, Shuichiro. 2018. "Mountains do not meet, but men do."Arabic in Contact, edited by Stefano Mandfredi and Mauro Tosco, 275-294. John Benjamins Publishing.
• Nhial, J. "Kinubi and Juba Arabic. A comparative study". In Hurriez, S. H.; Bell, H. (eds.).Directions in Sudanese Linguistics and Folklore. Khartoum: Institute of African and Asian Studies. pp. 81–94.
• Owens, Jonathan (1978).Aspects of Nubi Syntax (PhD thesis). University of London.
• Owens, Jonathan (1985). "The origins of East African Nubi".Anthropological Linguistics.27:229–271.
• Owens, Jonathan (1991). "Nubi, genetic linguistics, and language classification".Anthropological Linguistics.33:1–30.
• Owens, Jonathan (1997). "Arabic-based pidgins and creoles". In Thomason, S.G. (ed.).Contact languages: A wider perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 125–172.
• Wellens, Inneke Hilda Werner (2001).An Arabic creole in Africa: the Nubi language of Uganda(PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Nijmegen. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 13 October 2022.

• Arab diaspora in Africa
• Arabic-based pidgins and creoles
• Languages of Kenya
• Languages of Uganda
• South Sudanese diaspora
• Sudanese diaspora

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