Egyptian wasn’t the only important language in Egypt’s history—the Nubian language was also influential in the North African country’s past. While Old Nubian no longer exists in the same form it used to, it still exists as a handful of descendant languages. The biggest of the Nubian family of languages is Nobiin, with more than half a million speakers, but the smaller languages are also sizable. For example, there’s Hill Nubian, a collection of several closely related Nubian languages, that collectively boast more than 90,000 native speakers.
There are seven varieties of Hill Nubian, with varying mutual intelligibility. The best-established of the group are Ghulfan and Kadaru, with 37,000 and 25,000 native speakers respectively, which are paired together as being particularly closely related. The remainder of Hill Nubian languages are Dilling, Wali, Karko, Dair, and El Hugeirat, with only Dilling recording more than 10,000 speakers. Naturally, the Hill Nubian languages are threatened by the prominent and prestigious Arabic, and translation services for the minority languages are rare—which is why we at TranslationServices.com are so proud to introduce our Hill Nubian translation team.
Why not ask about a free quote for our Hill Nubian translation services today?
What are the Hill Nubian languages like?
The Hill Nubian languages get their name thanks to their location in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. They are, of course, related to the other Nubian languages, such as Nobiin, Kenzi, Dongolawi, and Midob, but not to the degree that they can be easily understood. Even Ghulfan and Kadaru, the biggest Hill Nubian languages, are under serious threat from Arabic, which, although completely unrelated, has had a significant impact on the development of the languages—in some cases, the percentage of Arabic loanwords can be as high as 83%.
As in other Nubian languages, the Hill Nubian languages use a basic word order of subject-object-verb. The languages use a lot of inflection to express grammatical meaning, with verbs conjugating for person and tense alike. In Ghulfan, verbs incorporate a plural marker, based on the plurality of the subject for intransitive verbs and the object for transitive verbs. Sometimes, verbs also need an additional vowel appended to the end, with four different options depending on the plurality of the subject and object. In nouns, Hill Nubian uses case suffixes to express the relationships between constituents, although the accusative case (object marker) can be omitted in some cases. Ultimately, it’s evident that the Hill Nubian languages are complicated for English speakers, and that makes translation difficult—but our translators are native speakers who know how to handle the challenge.
We’re excited to offer Hill Nubian translation services to anyone who wants them.
Whereas most translation agencies fail to offer translation services for any Hill Nubian language, we’re proud to present our well-rounded team capable of translating to and from numerous languages in the cluster. We’ve selected the best, most skilled translators we could find all throughout the Nuba Mountains, so whether you’re looking for translation services for Ghulfan, Kadaru, Dilling, Wali, Karko, or Dair, you can rely on our passionate, native-speaking translators to help you.
Catering to the unique needs of our clients is important to us, which is why we’ve hired translators who are skilled in a wide range of translation domains. Are you looking for academic translation services? What about business translation services? Perhaps literary translation services? Or maybe localization services? We have translators for the Hill Nubian languages who are experienced in these different areas, so just tell us what you’re looking for. If you need a translator who understands your field well, you can request that, too—we’ll try our best to match you with the best translator on our team.
If you want Hill Nubian translation services, just reach out now and let us help you!