Nubi Creole Arabic
| Nubi Arabic | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Uganda, Kenya |
|
Native speakers
|
42,000 (2002–2009) |
|
Arabic-based creole
|
|
|
Early form
|
|
| Arabic | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | nubi1253 |
The Nubi language (also called Ki-Nubi) is a Sudanese Arabic-based creole language spoken in Uganda around Bombo, and in Kenya around Kibera, by the descendants of Emin Pasha's Sudanese soldiers who were settled there by the British colonial administration. It was spoken by about 15,000 people in Uganda 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 the lexicon derives from Arabic, but the grammar has been simplified, as has the sound system. Nairobi has the greatest concentration of Nubi speakers. Nubi has the prefixing, suffixing and compounding processes also present in Arabic.
The Nubi speakers are Kakwa who came from the Nubian region, first into Equatoria, and from there southwards into Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Idi Amin, who was Kakwa, recruited the Kawa and Nubians into his army, to kill the Acholi and Lango.
Jonathan Owens argues that Nubi constitutes a major counterexample to Derek Bickerton's theories of creole 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.
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) where "bara" means "outside" and is an adverb while "baara" means "the outside" and is a noun, and also where "saara" meaning "bewitch" is compared to "sara" meaning "herd, cattle". Despite this, there is a tendency for vowels in stressed syllables to be registered as long vowels.
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