A Reference Grammar of Old Nubian

By (author) V. van Gerven Oei

Book cover: A Reference Grammar of Old Nubian

Extent: 481 pages

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Subjects: African Studies, Language & Linguistics, Medieval Studies

Series: Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta

Series volume number: 299

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(March 2021)

ISBN: 9789042941854

Price: $173.00

In stock

eBook (Published)

(March 2021)

ISBN: 9789042941861

Price: $173.00

This reference grammar provides a novel and detailed overview of Old Nubian, an extinct Nilo-Saharan language written in the Nubian kingdom of Makuria between the 8th and 15th centuries CE. Including more than 700 glossed examples sourced from manuscripts and inscriptions covering the entire written record, this standard work treats Old Nubian syntax, topic/focus constructions, subordination and coordination, verbal morphology including person, aspect, tense, pluractionality, affirmation, and negation, nominal morphology, derivation, and phonology. The grammar is aimed both at scholars working in the fields of Nubiology, Egyptology, and Near Eastern Studies curious to gain a better understanding of one of the lesser studied languages from the medieval period, and linguists interested in one of the few historical languages of which written records have survived on the African continent.

  • By (author) V. van Gerven Oei

"The consistent illustration of every aspect of Old Nubian grammar allows any reader to follow the explanation and either agree or disagree with the analysis. . . . Additional insights, corrections, new approaches, and new materials may change our understanding of Old Nubian but this reference grammar makes those developments a matter of interest to many more scholars than previously, for which van Gerven Oei should be explicitly commended." De Voogt, Alex, JAOS, vol. 144, no. 1, Mar. 2024
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