Where are you from, Selim Bey?

Perhaps there is no one figure more respected by Nubi people than Selim Bey Matara, the first leader among Nubi in East Africa.

He was an agha (commander) in Ottoman-Egyptian Equatorial Province (Wilayat Khatt al-Istiwa') under Emin Bey (later Pasha), who, in 1885, took his subordinates from Lado (near Juba) to Wadelai (West Nile) for refuge after being chased by the Sudanese Mahdi. After being left by Stanley, who "rescued" Emin from "the darkest Africa", Selim remained with his fellow Nubi soldiers and their families at Kavalli's on Lake Albert for a few years, faithfully holding the Egyptian Khedive's flag. It was in 1891 the British Lord Lugard came to persuade him to join the British army - it was the dawn of the Uganda Rifles, later King's African Rifles.

We do not know precisely about his background. A source tells he was from Makraka, a Zande-speaking people from South Sudan (Leopold 2005), while another official source tells he was from certain "Nuba" (Soghayroun 1981). There is a supporting legend among Nubi: One day a British asked Selim Bey "What is your tribe?" and he answered "ana nubi" (i.e. I am from Nuba), after which his fellow soldiers came to be collectively called "Nubi". But then, where is this "Nuba"?

"Nuba" is a strange word used by the Arabs to designate any black (Islamizing) people residing south of the Nile Basin. As such, Egyptian Arabs call the area from Aswan to Dongola "Nuba" (in English "Nubia"), Sudanese Arabs call the mountainous area in southern Kordofan "Nuba" (Nuba Mountains), and northern' Chadian/Darfurian Arabs call black Muslims residing south to them "Nuba". It means nothing more precisely than the eastern part of "Sudan", or "land of the blacks".

It is thus unknown which "Nuba" Selim intended to mention. Perhaps it might be that he intentionally used the term to avoid a tribalistic discourse, for the sake of the emerging multiethnic community that later crystallized as a new East African ethnic group.

When was the Nubi language born?

Usually it is impossible when a language was born. But creole languages are so new that one can try to guess when it started to develop.

What language served for the communication in the Uganda Rifles?

The Uganda Rifles was established in 1892 by the British who incorporated old South Sudanese ex-soldiers (by then called jihadiyya or Turks by local Ugandans), who were commanded in Arabic in Ottoman-Egyptian Equatoria. They corresponded with their bosses in Classical Arabic, as exemplified in the letter composed by Selim Bey Matara.

How Juba Arabic branched off from Nubi?

In an East African town, Nubi speakers sometimes come across with South Sudanese who speak a language similar to their own.

Juba Arabic is a major lingua franca in the Greater Equatoria region in South Sudan from Yambio to Torit, spoken by dozens of ethnic groups as well as Malakians, descendants of Nubi (or their relatives) in the urban quarters. Perhaps more than 70% of words are shared by Nubi and Juba Arabic.