The Nobiin Dictionary Project

Project Objective

Preparation of monolingual (Nobiin/Nobiin)

Project Field

Field of linguistics, Nilo-Nubian Languages, Northern Eastern Sudanic, Nubian.

Project Approach

To achieve the final goal of preparing the monolingual dictionaries through numerous stages of bilingual / trilingual lexica of escalating word sizes. The estimated number of words to be reached before the monolingual stage ranges between 5000-6000 words.

Research Strategy

• The use of updated and advanced techniques and methods of lexicography such as sematic domain in preparing these consecutive series of bilingual or trilingual lexica until researching the monolingual level. Computer aided software is suggested to be used to help organize the work of the dictionary (a Linguistic Dictionary making software such as Show Box).
• The use of Old-Nubian words to fill in the lexical gaps as formal vocabulary.
• The use of a comparative analogous method in lexicographic research between English as a developed model and Nobiin as an “under-represented language”. There should be always an attempt to fill the lexical gaps in comparison to Nubian languages and North Eastern Sudanic languages. Also, English can be used as a model in case of punctuation rules. The dictionary work should include fields to describe phonetic and phonological rules in case needed (assimilative forms), and etymological analysis and description.
• The use of the Old Nubian orthographic method developed by the NLS in writing Nobiin in the dictionary.

Project Methodology
This project research is an intent not to be a mere listing of words in alphabetic order while defining their meanings in a middle language used in the lexicon. The aim of this research is to provide lexica with full demonstration of various lexicographic fields such as etymology, semantics, phonetic pronunciation of words, word classing, defining thesaurustic semantics (synonymous and antonym), and explanation of the grammatical use (providing examples of use)

The Etymology Method
Etymology is the study of the history of words. There are nine proposed etymological categories to classify the lexical inputs i.e., lexemes; Meroitic, Old Nubian (Medieval), other Nubian, Egyptian, Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Turkish, or unknown source. This method assumes that all lexical components of Nobiin may fall into one of these categories according to their history. The dictionary should provide estimate date for the word e.g., if it falls into the medieval or Old-Nubian it should be dated between the fourth century to the fourteenth century i.e. before the collapse of Dongola 1320.

The Semantic description of Lexical inputs
Semantics is the study of the meaning of a word. The researchers should work on both conceptual and associative meanings of words. Moreover, the research should indicate all lexical relations such as synonymy, antonyms, and hyponyms in later stages. The semantic illustration should be accompanied with examples to illustrate the use of the words. The sematic interpretation of words in the pre-monolingual phases should include both English and Arabic.

The Phonetic Transcription
Researchers should use the international IPA symbols to demonstrate the pronunciation of words as an additional and explanatory way to transliterate the Old Nubian Alphabets. All members of the LVU will be given training in writing with the new orthographic IPA method and the NLS O.N orthography.
The estimated time required for this project is four years, starting from May 2020. The project will consist of eight phases; each phase will take three months of research and additional two months for revision and publishing.

Note*: All productions of these project will be published for free and made available in this website