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Nubian displacement and language
The displaced Nubians had only one language to communicate with, the Nubian language of their old location; however, the first thing that dropped out of their language when they relocated, was the names of their old villages which had historical significance. Instead, their new villages only had numbers to distinguish them.
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Nubians are the people who inhabit the far north of Sudan, from the border between Sudan and Egypt to the Dabba area, south of Dongola, in the south. The Nile Water Agreement, signed between Egypt and Sudan in 1959, stipulated the relocation of Sudanese citizens in the Faras area (at the far corner of the Wadi Halfa triangle) right along to the eastern and western banks of the Nile in the Dal area, a distance of an estimated 170 km away. This was because the High Dam, which the Egyptians were going to build in Upper Egypt, would result in the area behind the dam being flooded.
The delegation representing Sudan to discuss the agreement was led by Maj Gen Talat Farid while Egypt's negotiators were led by Maj Gen Khaled Mohieldin, both representing the military juntas in each country. General Ibrahim Aboud, Sudan's military ruler, reportedly instructed Talat Farid saying ‘we have plenty of water, we have the Nile and rain so what your uncle Gamal [Abdel Nasser] says, is what goes.’
In the agreement, Nile waters were divided between Sudan and Egypt on the basis that the Nile River forms in Khartoum and flows northwards from there. As such, Egypt received 55.5 percent of its water and Sudan 18.5 percent. Mirghani Hamza, the Sudanese Minister of Irrigation at the time, objected to the agreement warning that Egypt and Sudan would not be able to monopolise most of the Nile's waters as there were other countries bordering the Nile who were entitled to their shares. Hamza’s warning was not heeded and today we are witnessing the consequence of this.
Sudan agreed to the construction of the High Dam in exchange for a water sharing agreement, raising of the Roseires dam and the construction of the Jebel Awliya dam south of Khartoum. In exchange Egypt would secure the relocation of Nubians from Faras to Dal. Mirghani Hamza resigned.
The displaced people had lived in the city of Wadi Halfa and neighbouring areas to the south and north of the Wadi Halfa triangle, including land claimed by Egypt, but which belongs to Sudan. Relocation began on 26 January 1963. People were displaced firstly from the Wadi Halfa neighbourhoods of Fars East and West, Saras East and West, Debekra East and West, Argin, Eshkit, Dabarusa, Buhin, Degheim, Solan, and Farqi. Secondly were the people of Batn al-Hajar, 59 km south of Wadi Halfa, consisting of the following neighbourhoods: Abke, Jemi, Mershid, Sarras, Arul, Arti, Samna, Atir, Dushat, Ambikol, Tunguri, Songi, Akasha, Kulub, and Dal. They all communicated in Nubian except for the people of Ambikol.
The displaced people were allocated an area called Saruba al-Khadem in the Butana Plain in eastern Sudan. The British administration had planned the Khashm al-Qirba dam, at the new relocation site since 1945, and had indicated the need for people to be relocated to the low-lying plain north of the dam. Since 1958 the Sudanese military government (1958-1964) had begun to think about who would be the victim of such relocation to the Butana Plain. And so, the military rulers in Sudan and Egypt made the choice and decided who would be displaced and which areas would become depopulated.
The number of displaced people was 52,200 for whom 26 villages were hastily built. The first to migrate were hit by heavy rain which they had never seen or imagined before, and in their low-lying area, the earth quickly turned to sticky mud, preventing movement even for cars. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was later established and many people migrated to work on the project with those workers who operated the Khashm al-Qirba dam remaining in New Halfa. A new market was created to replace the old Wadi Halfa market, which had been one of the largest in Sudan.
The displaced Nubians had only one language to communicate with, the Nubian language of their old location; however, the first thing that dropped out of their language when they relocated, was the names of their old villages which had historical significance. Instead, their new villages only had numbers to distinguish them.
New Halfa became a bustling town, filled with people, a factor that had its effect on the Nubian language. Hundreds of names and words of vocabulary in Nubian related to the River Nile, with its boats, equipment, fish, islands, crops and places of cultivation, palm trees, mountains, singing, details of daily life, women's daily work, men, boys and girls grinding flour, and their tools at home and on the farm. Thousands of new words were borrowed from the new environment and one example of linguistic borrowing is related to the hawasha, a small plot of agricultural land which people were allocated for cultivation. Thus, words such as the following soon became part of mainstream vocabulary: hawasha, kanar, Ab Eshrein (alfafa), agricultural expert, inspector, inspection, institution, Hamar Abouri, fool, cotton, nafada, Arab, asbestos (houses were roofed with the material), jadwal (stream), bagar (cows), ankouj, malod, tarad, tractor and taraa. They were forced to grow peanuts and cotton, crops they had never known before. The Nubian language itself became the language people used in the home, it was not spoken outside.
The uneducated youth in New Halfa had a limited option of jobs and had to choose between joining the police or army or becoming farm labourers, messengers or cow herders. Strangely enough, most of them chose to work as cow herders for the daily income generated by selling milk and their share in the sale of calves. All this meant that the Nubians were working alongside members of other tribes such as the various subsections of the Beja tribe, the Malloa, the Kajaksa and Musamaja from Chad, and the Tama. Young men were therefore prompted to learn the language, care and culture of cow herding as this was their passport to work, and many of them embarked on this.
New Halfa is an area of linguistic overlap which is a covert struggle for possession of the ‘linguistic market’ because the biggest market - in terms of numbers and economic power – prevails. In 1999 a study found that the population in New Halfa consists of Nubians and Arabs. The number of Nubians was 39,000 and there were 75,000 seasonal migratory workers from Western Sudan who inhabited the Kanabi.
The establishment of the Wadi Halfa Museum was allocated to the National Museum in Khartoum. In a meeting in Aswan attended by stakeholders from Egyptian Nubia and Wadi Halfa, the land was purchased with UNESCO funding, and construction began in 2008, but it was halted. As scholars, we prepared ourselves to collect items relating to Nubia’s tangible and intangible heritage.
Meanwhile, young people learnt English to speak to tourists as part of the Language for Special Purposes programme. In New Halfa, we now find bilingualism (Arabic-Nubian) and tri-lingualism (Arabic-Nubian-Zaghawa), for example. The languages in New Halfa are Tama, Malu, Zaghawa, Beja, Masalit, Nuba Mountain languages, Beni Amer, Kajaksa, Musamaja, Fur, and Berti. Recently, we started a joint project with the Egyptian Nubians to establish the ‘Group for the Preservation of the Nubian Language and Cultures and the Translation of its Literature’, which is an active Nubian-Egyptian experience that will be transferred to Sudan.
Nubians are the people who inhabit the far north of Sudan, from the border between Sudan and Egypt to the Dabba area, south of Dongola, in the south. The Nile Water Agreement, signed between Egypt and Sudan in 1959, stipulated the relocation of Sudanese citizens in the Faras area (at the far corner of the Wadi Halfa triangle) right along to the eastern and western banks of the Nile in the Dal area, a distance of an estimated 170 km away. This was because the High Dam, which the Egyptians were going to build in Upper Egypt, would result in the area behind the dam being flooded.
The delegation representing Sudan to discuss the agreement was led by Maj Gen Talat Farid while Egypt's negotiators were led by Maj Gen Khaled Mohieldin, both representing the military juntas in each country. General Ibrahim Aboud, Sudan's military ruler, reportedly instructed Talat Farid saying ‘we have plenty of water, we have the Nile and rain so what your uncle Gamal [Abdel Nasser] says, is what goes.’
In the agreement, Nile waters were divided between Sudan and Egypt on the basis that the Nile River forms in Khartoum and flows northwards from there. As such, Egypt received 55.5 percent of its water and Sudan 18.5 percent. Mirghani Hamza, the Sudanese Minister of Irrigation at the time, objected to the agreement warning that Egypt and Sudan would not be able to monopolise most of the Nile's waters as there were other countries bordering the Nile who were entitled to their shares. Hamza’s warning was not heeded and today we are witnessing the consequence of this.
Sudan agreed to the construction of the High Dam in exchange for a water sharing agreement, raising of the Roseires dam and the construction of the Jebel Awliya dam south of Khartoum. In exchange Egypt would secure the relocation of Nubians from Faras to Dal. Mirghani Hamza resigned.
The displaced people had lived in the city of Wadi Halfa and neighbouring areas to the south and north of the Wadi Halfa triangle, including land claimed by Egypt, but which belongs to Sudan. Relocation began on 26 January 1963. People were displaced firstly from the Wadi Halfa neighbourhoods of Fars East and West, Saras East and West, Debekra East and West, Argin, Eshkit, Dabarusa, Buhin, Degheim, Solan, and Farqi. Secondly were the people of Batn al-Hajar, 59 km south of Wadi Halfa, consisting of the following neighbourhoods: Abke, Jemi, Mershid, Sarras, Arul, Arti, Samna, Atir, Dushat, Ambikol, Tunguri, Songi, Akasha, Kulub, and Dal. They all communicated in Nubian except for the people of Ambikol.
The displaced people were allocated an area called Saruba al-Khadem in the Butana Plain in eastern Sudan. The British administration had planned the Khashm al-Qirba dam, at the new relocation site since 1945, and had indicated the need for people to be relocated to the low-lying plain north of the dam. Since 1958 the Sudanese military government (1958-1964) had begun to think about who would be the victim of such relocation to the Butana Plain. And so, the military rulers in Sudan and Egypt made the choice and decided who would be displaced and which areas would become depopulated.
The number of displaced people was 52,200 for whom 26 villages were hastily built. The first to migrate were hit by heavy rain which they had never seen or imagined before, and in their low-lying area, the earth quickly turned to sticky mud, preventing movement even for cars. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was later established and many people migrated to work on the project with those workers who operated the Khashm al-Qirba dam remaining in New Halfa. A new market was created to replace the old Wadi Halfa market, which had been one of the largest in Sudan.
The displaced Nubians had only one language to communicate with, the Nubian language of their old location; however, the first thing that dropped out of their language when they relocated, was the names of their old villages which had historical significance. Instead, their new villages only had numbers to distinguish them.
New Halfa became a bustling town, filled with people, a factor that had its effect on the Nubian language. Hundreds of names and words of vocabulary in Nubian related to the River Nile, with its boats, equipment, fish, islands, crops and places of cultivation, palm trees, mountains, singing, details of daily life, women's daily work, men, boys and girls grinding flour, and their tools at home and on the farm. Thousands of new words were borrowed from the new environment and one example of linguistic borrowing is related to the hawasha, a small plot of agricultural land which people were allocated for cultivation. Thus, words such as the following soon became part of mainstream vocabulary: hawasha, kanar, Ab Eshrein (alfafa), agricultural expert, inspector, inspection, institution, Hamar Abouri, fool, cotton, nafada, Arab, asbestos (houses were roofed with the material), jadwal (stream), bagar (cows), ankouj, malod, tarad, tractor and taraa. They were forced to grow peanuts and cotton, crops they had never known before. The Nubian language itself became the language people used in the home, it was not spoken outside.
The uneducated youth in New Halfa had a limited option of jobs and had to choose between joining the police or army or becoming farm labourers, messengers or cow herders. Strangely enough, most of them chose to work as cow herders for the daily income generated by selling milk and their share in the sale of calves. All this meant that the Nubians were working alongside members of other tribes such as the various subsections of the Beja tribe, the Malloa, the Kajaksa and Musamaja from Chad, and the Tama. Young men were therefore prompted to learn the language, care and culture of cow herding as this was their passport to work, and many of them embarked on this.
New Halfa is an area of linguistic overlap which is a covert struggle for possession of the ‘linguistic market’ because the biggest market - in terms of numbers and economic power – prevails. In 1999 a study found that the population in New Halfa consists of Nubians and Arabs. The number of Nubians was 39,000 and there were 75,000 seasonal migratory workers from Western Sudan who inhabited the Kanabi.
The establishment of the Wadi Halfa Museum was allocated to the National Museum in Khartoum. In a meeting in Aswan attended by stakeholders from Egyptian Nubia and Wadi Halfa, the land was purchased with UNESCO funding, and construction began in 2008, but it was halted. As scholars, we prepared ourselves to collect items relating to Nubia’s tangible and intangible heritage.
Meanwhile, young people learnt English to speak to tourists as part of the Language for Special Purposes programme. In New Halfa, we now find bilingualism (Arabic-Nubian) and tri-lingualism (Arabic-Nubian-Zaghawa), for example. The languages in New Halfa are Tama, Malu, Zaghawa, Beja, Masalit, Nuba Mountain languages, Beni Amer, Kajaksa, Musamaja, Fur, and Berti. Recently, we started a joint project with the Egyptian Nubians to establish the ‘Group for the Preservation of the Nubian Language and Cultures and the Translation of its Literature’, which is an active Nubian-Egyptian experience that will be transferred to Sudan.
