Editing Nobiin language (section)

==Geography and demography==
[[Image:Distribution of Nobiin speaking communities.png|220px|right|thumb|Before the construction of the [[Aswan Dam]], the Nobiin people lived mainly between the first and third [[cataracts of the Nile]] along the shores of the Nile. Yellow dots show places where communities of Nobiin speakers are found today.]]
[[Image:Egypt-Nubian wedding.jpg|200px|right|thumb|A [[Nubia]]n wedding near [[Aswan]], Egypt]]

Before the construction of the [[Aswan Dam]], speakers of Nobiin lived in the Nile valley between the third [[cataracts of the Nile|cataract]] in the south and Korosko in the north. About 60% of the territory of [[Nubia]] was destroyed or rendered unfit for habitation as a result of the construction of the dam and the creation of [[Lake Nasser]]. At least half of the Nubian population was forcibly resettled.<ref>Rouchdy 1992b:92, citing Adams 1977.</ref>  Nowadays, Nobiin speakers live in the following areas: (1) near [[Kom Ombo]], Egypt, about 40&nbsp;km north of [[Aswan]], where new housing was provided by the Egyptian government for approximately 50,000 Nubians; (2) in the [[New Halfa Scheme]] in the [[Kassala]], Sudan, where housing and work was provided by the Sudanese government for Nubians from the inundated areas around [[Wadi Halfa]]; (3) in the [[Northern state, Sudan]], northwards from [[Burgeg]] to the Egyptian border at [[Wadi Halfa]]. Additionally, many Nubians have moved to large cities like [[Cairo]] and [[Khartoum]]. In recent years, some of the resettled Nubians have returned to their traditional territories around Abu Simbel and Wadi Halfa.

Practically all speakers of Nobiin are bilingual in [[Egyptian Arabic]] or [[Sudanese Arabic]]. For the men, this was noted as early as 1819 by the traveller [[Johann Ludwig Burckhardt]] in his ''Travels to Nubia''. The forced resettlement in the second half of the twentieth century also brought more Nubians, especially women and children, into daily contact with Arabic. Chief factors in this development include increased mobility (and hence easy access to non-Nubian villages and cities), changes in social patterns such as women going more often to the market to sell their own products, and easy access to Arabic newspapers.<ref>Rouchdy 1992a:93.</ref> In urban areas, many Nubian women go to school and are fluent in Arabic; they usually address their children in Arabic, reserving Nobiin for their husband. In response to concerns about a possible language shift to Arabic, Werner notes a very positive language attitude.<ref name="attitude">Werner 1987:31: "{{lang|de|Zwar ist fast jeder nubische Mann zweisprachig, und durch die Schule dringt das Arabische immer weiter vor, doch konnte nie der 'Verlust der Sprachkompetenz' beobachtet werden.|italic=no}}" [''It is true that almost every Nubian man is bilingual, and that Arabic is pervading through education — but a 'loss of competence' was never observed.'']</ref> Rouchdy (1992a) however notes that use of Nobiin is confined mainly to the domestic circle, as Arabic is the dominant language in trade, education, and public life. Sociolinguistically, the situation may be described as one of [[stable bilingualism]]: the dominant language (Arabic in this case), although used widely, does not easily replace the minority language since the latter is tightly connected to the Nubian identity.<ref>Rouchdy 1992a:95</ref>

Nobiin has been called ''Mahas(i)'', ''Mahas-Fiadidja'', and ''Fiadicca'' in the past. Mahas and Fiadidja are geographical terms which correspond to two dialectal variants of Nobiin; the differences between these two dialects are negligible, and some have argued that there is no evidence of a dialectal distinction at all.<ref name="dialects">Werner (1987:18—24), see also Bell (1974).</ref> Nobiin should not be confused with the [[Nubi language]], an Arabic-based creole.