Nubian language

The Nubian language group, according to the most recent research by Bechhaus-Gerst comprises the following varieties:

1. Nobiin (previously called Mahas)
2. Dongolawi and Kenzi. Kenzi is spoken north of Mahas in Egypt while Dongolawi is spoken south of Mahas around Dongola. With population displacement due to the Aswan High Dam there are communities of Nubian speakers in Lower Egypt and in Eastern Sudan (Khashm el-Girba). Apart from these two distinct varieties spoken along the Nile, three other varieties existed.
3. Midob in and around the Malha volcanic crater in North Darfur.
4. Birgid - originally spoken north of Nyala around Menawashei until the 1970s. The last surviving aged speakers were interviewed by Thelwall at this time. And some equally aged speakers on Gezira Aba just north of Kosti on the Nile south of Khartoum and interviewed by Thelwall in 1980.
5. Hill Nubian - a group of closely related dialects spoken in various villages in the northern Nuba Mountains - in particular Dilling, Debri, and Kadaru.
6. Old Nubian is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a Christian religious nature, written using a modified form of the Coptic (Greek) script. These documents range in date from the 8th to the 15th century A.D. Old Nubian is currently considered ancestral to modern Nobiin.