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User:Suby1234/Kenzi language

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Kenzi
Mattokki
Native toEgypt
RegionNile River
Native speakers
50,000 (2014)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3xnz
Glottologkenu1243

Kenuzi is classified as a Nubian language. It is mostly spoken by the Kenuzi tribe in Egypt (Fernea, 1966). Most of the Kenuzi speaking people live in the city of Kom Ombo in the Aswan Governorate of Egypt. However, Kenuzi is also spoken in some parts of Arica like Libya and Sudan (Spaulding, 2006). Kenzi has many other names it goes by, which are Kenuz, Kunuzi, Kenzi, Nubian (Kunuz), and Kenzy. The Kenuzi language was very prevalent before the 15th century (Kirwan, 1974). The people who spoke Kenuzi were mostly of Christianic faith until Islam spread around the 15th century (Fahim, 1973). When Islam spread, so did the Arabic language which resulted in the use of Kenuzi decreasing. Kenuzi is now a threatened language that has about 50,000 native speakers worldwide. Kenuzi is very similar to the Nubian dialect called Dongolawi (Rouchdy, 2017). The language’s main form of writing is Meriotic which is made up of twenty-three characters and includes the world’s first written punctuation marks (Abdel-Hafiz, 1989).

Geography

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The Kenuzi tribe is a part of the seven non-Arab Muslim tribes that make up the Nubians. Their place of stay was between Aswan in Egypt and Dongola in Sudan. (Gilmore, C, 2015) The Nubians inhabited a large area which caused there to be multiple languages that formed together with Kenuzi, one of them being Dongolawi. These are all considered Nubian speakers, which are the most prominent people in Egypt outside of Arabic speakers.(Gilmore, C, 2015) The Kenuzi people were forced to migrate multiple times because of flooding problems, so most of them ended up becoming bilingual in their efforts to find jobs. As of modern times Kenuzi is still spoken in small areas in Northern Egypt and along the banks of the Nile in Sudan.(Gilmore, C, 2015)

Culture

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An Egyptian Nubian family celebrating a wedding

The people of the Kenuzi tribe have a long list of obstacles they had to overcome. They were know for their agricultural work and manual labor. In some cases the whole family would be a part of the job and everyone would contribute in some way. After Egypt built the low dam, the Kenuzi people had to move and find other jobs because agriculture was not an option anymore. In typical Kenuzi households the man goes and works to provide for the family. While the women usually is homemaker and spends time with the kids. The women are known to be great at sewing and clothe-making because they often made their own clothes. In Kenuzi culture there is great respect for the man in the family. if the man was not present no extravagant meals would be cooked, for example meats would not be made because it would be considered disrespectful if they ate without him. (Enderlin, S, 2007) The Kenuzi tribe falls under the broader term Nubian, and Nubians were known for being very welcoming of guests in their home. Nubians were known for offering more than what they had so the guest could feel appreciated. The Kenuzi people are darker then Egyptians so they are looked down upon, but that does not stop them from being proud of who they are. The Kenuzi's have been know to hold onto their culture and language because they respect their ancestors and where they came from. Due to their culture, even though the number of speakers has dwindled, it has not disappeared totally.

Religion

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The Kenuzi tribe have a long history with religion. The tribe practiced Christianity up until the 6th century. At the time Islam was spreading quickly, so the tribe ending up converting and practicing Islam. In modern times most of the people who speak Kenuzi are muslim, almost 93%. The other 7% have a couple of different belief systems that include Christianity, Nile worshippers, and Shias. (Project, J)

Phonology

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Nubian Languages have been around for dozens of centuries. The Nubians writing system is composed of 23 letters and even includes punctuation marks. (Abdel-Hafiz, A. S., 1998) There form of writing did change slightly at certain times of history depending on religion. The Kenuzi language specifically is different from the other Nubian languages because it does not emphasize tone. Depending on the Kenuzi tribe, certain letters could be pronounced differently and even different nasal impressions would be added to words. Vowels are a big part of the Kenuzi language, there are a total of five long vowels and five short vowels. Their stress system on vowels is also very different compared to other Nubian languages. In any one syllable word the stress is on the first syllable, in anything above one syllable the stress falls on the penultimate.(Abdel-Hafiz, A. S., 1998).

Kenuzi Letters and Words

Morphology

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Kenuzi is a language that uses a lot of a suffixes, suffixes are used with every word class. Prefixes are used only when the word is a verb. Kenuzi has the same word classes as english, which are nouns, adjectives, verbs, and pronouns. On thing to note, Pronouns take the suffix -gu unlike any of the other word classes. (Jakobi, A, 2014).

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Learning the Nubian Language (Mattokki) Series on Youtube - Lesson 1 (in Arabic).

Bibliography

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  1. Abdel-Hafiz, A. S. (1989). A Reference Grammar of Kunuz Nubian. https://www.sfu.c,a/~gerdts/teaching/Abdel-HafizNubian.pdf
  2. ENDERLIN, S. J. “THE NUBIANS OF TODAY.” The Muslim World, Wiley/Blackwell (10.1111), 3 Apr. 2007, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1938.tb02431.x.
  3. Fahim, H. (1973). Change in Religion in a Resettled Nubian Community, Upper Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4(2), 163-177. Retrieved May 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/stable/162240
  4. Fernea, R. A. (ed.) 1966. Contemporary Egyptian Nubia. 2v.
  5. Gilmore, C., & جلمور, ك. (2015). "A Minor Literature in a Major Voice": Narrating Nubian Identity in Contemporary Egypt /ﺃﺩﺏ » مهمش ذو صوت مركزي »: قص الهوية النوبية في مصر المعاصرة. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, (35), 52-74. Retrieved May 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/stable/24772811
  6. Hopkins, N. S., & Mehanna, S. R. (2010). Nubian Encounters: The Story of the Nubian Ethnological Survey 1961–1964.
  7. Jaeger, M. (2018). Aspects of Gender in Dongolawi and Kenzi Nubian Wise Sayings and Proverbs. Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies, 5(1), 6.
  8. Jakobi, A., Ruffini, G., & Oei, V. W. (2014). Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies (Vol. 1). Brooklyn, NY: DigitalCommons@Fairfield & punctum books . Page 102
  9. Kennedy, J. (1970). Aman Doger: Nubian Monster of the Nile. The Journal of American Folklore, 83(330), 438-445. doi:10.2307/539665
  10. Mahgoub, Y. O. (1990). The Nubian experience: a study of the social and cultural meanings of architecture. University of Michigan . Pg 166-167
  11. Project, J. (n.d.). Nubian, Dongola in Sudan. Retrieved March 09, 2018, from https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/11607/SU
  12. Rilly, C., & Voogt, A.D. (2012). The Meroitic Language and Writing System. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511920028
  13. Rilly, C. (2019). Languages of Ancient Nubia. In D. Raue (Ed.), Handbook of Ancient Nubia (pp. 129-152). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110420388-007
  14. Rouchdy, A. (1980). Languages in Contact: Arabic-Nubian. Anthropological Linguistics, 22(8), 334-344. Retrieved May 6, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/stable/30027494
  15. Rouchdy, A. (2017). Nubians and the Nubian language in contemporary Egypt: A case of cultural and linguistic contact. Brill.
  16. Sambaj, I. (1998). Al-Nubi [The Nubian Dictionary].
  17. Smith, S. T. (2020). The Nubian Experience of Egyptian Domination During the New Kingdom. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia, 369.
  18. Spaulding, J. (2006). Pastoralism, Slavery, Commerce, Culture and the Fate of the Nubians of Northern and Central Kordofan Under Dar Fur Rule, "ca." 1750-"ca." 1850. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 39(3), 393-412. Retrieved May 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/stable/40034824
  19. Trigger, B. (1966). The Languages of the Northern Sudan: An Historical Perspective. The Journal of African History, 7(1), 19-25. Retrieved May 6, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/179456The Nubian Language. (n.d.). Retrieved March 09, 2018, from http://shazlyasmail.tripod.com/new_page_61.htm
  20. Vasiliev, A. (2015). Africa in the Changing World Development Paradigm. Lac-Beauport, CANADA: MeaBooks Inc.
  21. Zabrana, Lilli. (2013) “Abandoned Nubian Villages in Upper Egypt: Material Culture in Social Anthropological Field Studies.” Forming Material Egypt, Http://Www.libreriapontremoli.it/Edal.php, 2013,www.academia.edu/11524035/Abandoned_Nubian_Villages_in_Upper_Egypt_Material_Culture_in_Social_Anthropological_Field_Studies?auto=download

References

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  1. ^ Kenzi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

Category:Nubian languages Category:Languages of Egypt


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