The Nubi language 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, 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.
Grammar
Phonology
Vowels
There are five vowels in Nubi. Vowels are not distinguished by length except in at least two exceptions from Kenyan Nubi 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. Each of the vowels has multiple allophones and the exact sound of the vowel depends on the surrounding consonants.
Consonants
Speakers may use Standard Arabic phonemes for words for which the Arabic pronunciation has been learned. The a retroflex 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. Ineke Wellens gives the following orthography for Nubi where it differs from the IPA symbols: // = sh; /t/ = ch; // = j; // = ny; /w/ = w or u; /j/ = y or i; // = th; // = dh; /x/ = kh; // = ḥ.
Syllable Structure
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 as "skul" which means "school" or "sems" which means "sun". Stress can change the meaning of words for example "saba" 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 caused syllables to be realigned even across words.
1"Nuswan" may be supplemented by a suffix as if it were type 3, thus, "nuswana" could also mean "women". Adjectives follow the noun and some adjectives have singular and plural forms which must agree with the noun. Adjectives may also take the prefixes "al", "ali", "ab" or "abu" which mark them as habitual. When a noun is a possessor follow the possessed noun and is mark with the particle "ta" which is placed between the two nouns. The particle can be omitted in what are called inalienable possessed nouns where it is clear that the latter possesses the former.
