Survey chapter: Kinubi

Structure data for these languages can be found in structure dataset 63.

1. Introduction

Kinubi (autoglossonyms: Kinúbi or Rután núbi) is spoken today mainly in Uganda and in Kenya. It is spoken as a first language by the Nubi. According to some sources, it is also spoken as a lingua franca by non-Nubi in some towns of western Uganda. Most of the Nubi also speak Swahili and English. Formerly, there were some Nubi communities in Tanzania and Somalia too, but it seems that the Tanzanian Nubi do not speak the language anymore it has been replaced by Swahili; the Nubi of Somalia accompanied the British when they left a part of Somalia to the Italians in 1921, and they then settled in Kenya. Some Nubi communities also live in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mainly in the cities close to the Ugandan border.

Kinubi is closely related to Juba Arabic (see Manfredi & Petrollino (2012) in this volume), but it also includes many words borrowed from Swahili and English. There are two main varieties of Kinubi, Ugandan Kinubi and Kenyan Kinubi, though they are very similar to each other.

2. Sociohistorical background

The establishment of Egyptian trading and military camps in southern Sudan, in the second half of the 19th century, led to the use of an Arabic-based lingua franca as the means of communication between Arabic speakers (using several dialects, such as Egyptian and West Sudanese) and the multilingual local population, especially the local men who were introduced into the army. Slowly, this lingua franca became a pidgin in use among the soldiers and their families. At the end of the 19th century, some of these soldiers went to East Africa Uganda, and later Kenya, Tanzania, and even Somalia where they settled down, mainly serving in the British colonial troops (the King’s African Rifles). With them they brought their language, which would later be called Kinubi. Most Nubi still remember the names of their ancestors’ “tribes” (kabíla in Kinubi) like Moru, Podjulu, Kakwa, Bari, Dinka, and Shilluk.

These pidginized and creolized varieties of Arabic have been described by European observers since the beginning of the 20th century. A British officer, E. V. Jenkins, wrote a booklet in 1908–1909 about the pidginized Arabic spoken by Sudanese soldiers serving in Uganda (Kaye & Tosco 1993). In 1913, J. A. Meldon, another British officer, also wrote a lexicon of this language (Meldon 1913).

3. Sociolinguistic situation

In East Africa, the Nubi communities are proud of their language and see it as one of the features of their identity. However, competition with English and Swahili may endanger the use of Kinubi, especially in the big cities like Mombasa or Nairobi, as it did in Tanzania, where it seems that Swahili has replaced Kinubi among the Nubi communities.

Kinubi may be written in Latin characters: Some Nubi exchange letters and e-mails in their language or use it in the written administration of their cultural organizations, as in Mombasa, for instance. In Bombo (Uganda), Mustafer Khamisy writes poems in Kinubi and distributes them during Nubi cultural events.

4. Phonology

The five vowels of Kinubi are shown in Table 1. Vowel length is not distinctive.

Table 1. Vowels

front

central

back

close

i

u

mid

e

o

open

a

The consonants of Kinubi are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Consonants

bilabial

labio-dental

alveolar

palato-alveolar

velar

uvular

glottal

plosive

(p) b

t d

k g

affricate

(tš) j [dʒ]

fricative

f

s z

š

(x)

(ġ)

h

nasal

m

n

(ŋ)

trill

r

lateral

l

approximant

w

The consonants in parentheses in the chart have a marginal status and only occur in Arabic and Swahili loanwords.

There is phonemic variation for some consonants, mainly s ~ š, j ~ g, l ~ r, and z ~ j, as in: azól ~ ajól ‘man’, súnu ~ šúnu ‘what?’.

There is word stress, which may be lexically distinctive as in sába ‘seven’ vs. sabá ‘morning’, and even grammatically distinctive as in límu ‘to gather’ vs. limú ‘to be gathered’. In most cases, word stress in Kinubi corresponds to a long vowel or a stressed vowel in the lexifier, e.g. kalám ‘word’, azól ‘man’.

The main patterns of the syllable are: V, VC, CV, and CVC, as in á-na ‘I’, al (relative pronoun), fi ‘in’ and kan ‘if’, but there is a strong tendency toward open syllabic structure, for instance with the use of an additional final vowel, as in kebír > kebíri ‘big’.

5. Noun phrase

Kinubi distinguishes between independent pronouns and possessive suffix pronouns (following the possessive marker t-), though the pronouns of the 3rd person singular and the plural are similar:

Table 3. Personal pronouns and adnominal possessives

independent pronouns

possessive pronouns

1SG

ána

t-ái ~ t-áy

2SG

íta

t-áki

3SG

úo ~ úwo

t-o

1PL

anína ~ ína

t-éna

2PL

ítakum ~ ítokum

tá-kum

3PL

úmun

t-ómun

The independent pronouns are used in four cases:

(i) subject of nominal sentences: úmun Mundáre [3PL Mundare] ‘They are Mundare.’

(ii) subject of verbal sentences: ína árifu má [1PL know NEG] ‘We didn’t know.’

(iii) objects of verbs: úwo šítim íta [3SG insult 2SG] ‘He has insulted you.’

(iv) after a preposition, as in (1).

(1)
úmun
3pl
come
kélem
speak
na
with
ína
1pl
They came and spoke with us.

The suffix pronouns are used after the possessive marker, as in ásma tá-i [name poss-1sg] ‘my name’ or wazé t-ómun [ancestor poss-3pl] ‘their ancestors’.

There is no morphological gender distinction, so adjectives show no agreement: wéle sakár ‘a young boy’, binía sakár ‘a young girl’.

In Kinubi, the majority of nouns have no morphological plural, the plurality being marked by the plural demonstrative or by a plural word, as in Núbi dol [Nubi PL] ‘the Nubi’. However, some words may have a plural suffix, like sókol ‘thing’ vs. sokol-ín [thing-PL] ‘things’, or bakán ‘place’ vs. bakan-á [place-PL] ‘places’; some words may have a plural prefix like nas in nas Morú [PL Moru] ‘the Moru’; some have a suppletive form like mára ‘woman’ vs. nuswán ‘women’; and others have a stress shift like bágara ‘cow’ vs. bagará ‘cows’.

Etymologically, all the numerals are related to the Arabic lexicon and keep the unit-ten order (wáy u talatín [one and thirty] ‘thirty-one’). However, the speaker may switch to English to express high numbers, like millions or billions. In counting, álf ‘thousand’ is often followed by wáy ‘one’, as in (2), which is obviously due to the influence of Swahili (elfu moja mia tisa hamsini na tano).

(2)
álf
thousand
wáy
one
tísa
nine
mía
hundred
u
and
kámsa
five
u
and
kamsín
fifty
1955

The demonstrative pronouns are used as definite markers, e.g. rági de [man DEF] ‘the man’. Indefiniteness may be marked by the omission of the definite marker or by the use of the numeral wáy ‘one’, as in sókol wáy [thing one] ‘one thing’.

Noun modifiers demonstrative/definite marker, adjective, numeral generally stand after the noun, as in wéle kámsa [boy five] ‘five boys’, béle de [country DEM] ‘this country’, and rujál tinén [man two] ‘two men’. However, the word kíla ‘each’, a Swahili borrowing, precedes the noun (as in Swahili).

Number agreement is not systematic. On the one hand, we find úmun ketir-ín [they many-pl] ‘they are numerous’, but on the other hand Swahíli ya ketír [Swahili cop numerous] ‘Swahili are numerous’.

Generally, the possessor noun or the suffix pronoun follows the possessed noun and is introduced by a genitive marker (-, rarely bitá-), as in kurá tá-ki [leg poss-2sg] ‘your leg’ and Núbi ta Mombása [Nubi poss Mombasa] ‘the Nubi of Mombasa’. A possessive construction lacking a marker is also possible but often renders specific expressions or compounds, as in láam gába [animal forest] ‘animal’ or rután núbi [language Nubi] Kinubi’.

Unlike Arabic, Kinubi has no special elative form of the adjective; comparison is marked by fútu after the adjective, as in (3).

(3)
úwo
3sg
kebír
big
fútu
compar
ána
1sg
He is bigger than me.

Fútu may be replaced by záidi min ‘more than’:

(4)
de
that
tegíl
heavy
záidi
more
min
than
láger
stone
It is heavier than a stone.

6. Verb phrase

All the verbs have an invariable stem. There is no derivational morphology, except some compound verbs with ‘to do’.

The verb has several TAM (tense-aspect-mood) markers, as illustrated in (5), and listed in Table 5.

(5) a. úwo máši [3SG go] ‘he went’

b. úwo kan máši [3SG IMPF go] ‘he was going’

c. úwo gi-máši [3SG IPFV-go] ‘he goes’

d. úwo bi-máši [3SG FUT-go] ‘he will go’

e. úwo kalás máši [3SG finished go] ‘he’s gone’

Stative verbs are generally used without any marker, e.g. ána féker ‘I think’.

Table 5. Tense-Aspect-Mood markers

lexical aspect

tense/aspect

mood

Ø

action, motion, stative

perfect

generic present

imperative

gi- ~ ge-

action, motion

action, stative

imperfective: progressive, durative, habitual present

habitual present

bi-

action, motion, stative

future, conditional, habitual present

irrealis

kan

action, motion, stative

past perfect

imperfect

kan bi-

action, motion, stative

habitual past

kan gi-

action, motion

imperfect (i.e. past imperfective)

The imperative is formed by the use of the verbal root alone. For some verbs, there is a suppletive form, e.g. taál ‘come’ ( ‘to come’). Likewise, a verb introduced by an auxiliary is non-inflected:

(6)
ána
1sg
ázu
want
kélem
talk
me
with
íta
2sg
I want to talk with you.

Existential sentences are usually formed with (negated má fí), as in

(7)
Núbi
Nubi
exist
fi
in
Kénya
Kenya
There are Nubi in Kenya.

The main way to render possessive sentences is by using the verb éndisi: ána éndisi bé [1SG have house] ‘I have a house’. Other possibilities exist, such as the use of an existential sentence accompanied by ma ‘with’:

(8)
Morú
Moru
exist
ma
with
rután
language
t-ómun
poss - 3pl
The Moru have their own language.

is placed before the predicate or the verb as negation: ána má árifu [1SG NEG know] ‘I don’t know’, de má Núbi ‘he’s not a Nubi’. In Ugandan Kinubi, or máfi often comes after the predicate: ána árifu má [1SG know NEG] ‘I don’t know’.

7. Simple sentences

The word order at clause level is SVO, as in (9).

(9)
úwo
3sg
rúo
go
áinu
see
terebíya
education
ta
poss
binia
girl
de
def
He will observe the education of the girl.

However, topicalization is quite common, as in (10):

(10)
mána
meaning
t-ó
poss - 3sg
ána
1sg
neg
árifu
know
I don't know its meaning.

8. Complex sentences

The relative clause is introduced by al:

(11)
azól
man
al
rel
come
min
from
Yéy
Yei
the man who came from Yei

It may also be introduced by abú:

(12)
ajól
man
abú
rel
éndis
have
sána
year
milán
many
the man who has many years; the old man

Generally, the subordinate comlement clause directly follows the verb:

(13)
ána
1sg
féker
think
lúga
language
de
dem
bi-já
TAM -come
wóduru
disappear
I think that this language will disappear.

However, in Uganda it may be introduced with the complementizer gál, as in:

(14)
íta
2sg
gi-kélem
TAM -say
gáli
say
saharó
bewitch. pass
You say that he has been bewitched.

Reduplication may be used to emphasize the meaning of a verb, an adjective, or an adverb: yal-á dugag-ín dugag-ín [child-PL small-PL small-PL] ‘very young kids’.