Writing
Old Nubian is written in an uncial variant of the Coptic alphabet, including three unique letters: ⳡ /ɲ/ and ⳣ /w/ are both apparently derived from Meroitic script; so is also ⳟ /ŋ/, unless it is a ligature of two Greek gammas.
Old Nubian made extensive use of nomina sacra. Abbreviation was also used more generally throughout the language: in addition to nomina sacra formulas, a line over a letter could indicate:
- a vowel which formed a syllable by itself, or was preceded by one of ⲗ, ⳟ, ⲣ, or ϫ;
- a consonant with an /i/ (sometimes unwritten) preceding it.
The sound /i/ could be written ε, ε̄ι, η, ι or υ; /u/ was normally written ου. In diphthongs, a diaeresis was sometimes used over ι to indicate the semivowel y. Geminate consonants were written double; long vowels were usually not distinguished from short ones.
Modern Nobiin is a tonal language: if Old Nubian was as well, the values were not marked.
Punctuation marks included a high dot •, sometimes substituted by a double backslash \\ (⳹), used roughly like an English period or colon, a slash / (⳺) used like a question mark, and a double slash // (⳼) sometimes used to separate verses.
Read more about this topic: Old Nubian Language
Famous quotes containing the word writing:
“The big toad sits in my writing room
preventing me from writing. I am a flower
who dries out under her hot breath.”
—Anne Sexton (19281974)
“It seems to me that since Ive had children, Ive grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.”
—Anne Tyler (20th century)
“England has the most sordid literary scene Ive ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guys writing a foreword for this person. They all have to give radio programs, they have to do all this just in order to scrape by. Theyre all scratching each others backs.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)