When Language Loyalty Doesn't Work: The Case of a Small Language in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan

Authors

  • Abdelrahim Hamid Mugaddam

    Department of English, College of Arts, Jouf Univerity, Sakaka 72311, Saudi Arabia
  • Maha Abdulghafar Alayyash

    College of Languages and Translation, Department of English, Jeddah University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i11.11400
Received: 31 July 2025 | Revised: 18 September 2025 | Accepted: 19 September 2025 | Published Online: 24 October 2025

Abstract

This paper describes the linguistic situation of Tima, a little-described and highly endangered language that is spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. It aims to analyze the status and use of the Tima language in the region, focusing mainly on multilingualism, language use in different domains, and attitudes that Tima speakers have toward their own language. The main objective is to see whether there is a correlation between positive attitudes toward the language and its actual vitality among its immediate speech community. Many speakers of endangered languages express strong loyalty to their ethnic mother tongues while they shift at significant rates to the dominant languages. A sociolinguistic survey was conducted among 1,189 individuals selected primarily to represent five age groups (ranging from seven to 60+ years old). Questions were asked about demographic information, linguistic repertoire, language use, and language attitudes. Results showed that a vast majority of the sample population still has a mastery of the Tima language and uses it exclusively at home. However, multilingualism and the use of English and Arabic in more practical domains, together with positive attitudes toward these two languages, indicate a possible language shift among Tima speakers in the near future.

Keywords:

Tima; Language Loyalty; Language Maintenance; Language Shift

References

[1] Greenberg, J.H., 1963. The Languages of Africa. Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics: Bloomington, IN, USA.

[2] Greenberg, J.H., 1966. Universals of Language. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA.

[3] Meerpohl, M., 2012. The Tima of the Nuba Mountains (Sudan): A Social Anthropological Study. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag: Cologne, Germany.

[4] Mugaddam, A.H., Dimmendaal, G.J., 2006. Sudan: Language Situation. In: Brown, K. (ed.). International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier: Oxford, UK. pp. 265–270.

[5] Dimmendaal, G., 2009. Coding Participant Marking: Construction Types in Twelve African Languages. John Benjamins: Amsterdam, Netherlands.

[6] Miller, C., Abu-Manga, A., 1992. Language Change and National Integration: Rural Migrants in Khartoum. Khartoum University Press: Khartoum, Sudan.

[7] Mugaddam, A.H., 2006. Language Maintenance and Shift in Sudan: The Case of Ethnic Migrant Groups in Khartoum. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2006(181), 123–136. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/IJSL.2006.056

[8] Holmes, J., Wilson, N., 2022. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 6th ed. Routledge: London, UK. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367821852

[9] Aipolo, A., Holmes, J., 1990. The Use of Tongan in New Zealand: Prospects for Language Maintenance. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 11(6), 501–521. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.1990.9994435

[10] Gal, S., 1978. Peasant Men Can’t Get Wives: Language Change and Sex Roles in Bilingual Austria. Language in Society. 7(1), 1–16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500005303

[11] Hindly, R., 1990. The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary. Routledge: London, UK.

[12] Holmes, J., 2013. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th ed. Routledge: Abingdon, UK.

[13] Posel, D., Zeller, J., 2019. Language Use and Language Shift in Post-Apartheid South Africa. In: Hickey, R. (ed.). English in Multilingual South Africa: The Linguistics of Contact and Change. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. pp. 288–309.

[14] Mesthrie, R., 2007. Language Shift, Cultural Change and Identity Retention: Indian South Africans in the 1960s and Beyond. South African Historical Journal. 57(1), 134–152.

[15] Ahmed, M.S., 1979. An Analysis of the Nuba Mountains Language Survey: A Comparative Study of Language Usage in Dair, Angarko, and Habila [Master’s Thesis]. University of Khartoum: Khartoum, Sudan. pp. 20–30.

[16] Ismail, S., 1987. The Language Situation in Heiban [M.A. Thesis]. University of Khartoum: Khartoum, Sudan. pp. 18–23.

[17] Zummrawi, F., 1980. Dynamics of Language Use Change in a Nubian Community in New Halfa [M.A. Thesis]. University of Khartoum: Khartoum, Sudan. pp. 21–26.

[18] Mahmoud, U.A., 1983. Arabic in Southern Sudan: History and Spread of a Pidgin-Creole. FAL Advertising Co. Ltd.: Khartoum, Sudan.

[19] Bell, H., 1975. Pidgin Arabic and the Language Survey of Sudan. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Pidgins and Creoles, Honolulu, HI, USA, 6–10 January 1975; pp. 1–11.

[20] Mugaddam, A.H., Abdelhay, A., 2013. Exploring the Sociolinguistic Profile of Tima in the Nuba Mountains. In: Schaderberg, T., Blench, R.M. (eds.). Nuba Mountains Language Studies. Rüdiger Köppe: Cologne, Germany. pp. 297–324.

[21] Romaine, S., 1992. Language, Education, and Development: Urban and Rural Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea. Clarendon Press: New York, NY, USA

[22] Mugaddam, A.R.H., 2006. Language Status and Use in Dilling City, the Nuba Mountains. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 27(4), 290–303. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2167/jmmd444.1

[23] Jahalla, K.M., 2001. The Linguistic Situation in Al-Fashir City [Ph.D. Thesis]. University of Khartoum: Khartoum, Sudan. pp. 163–168

[24] Abdelhay, A., Makoni, B., Makoni, S., et al., 2011. The Sociolinguistics of Nationalism in the Sudan: The Politicisation of Arabic and the Arabicisation of Politics. Current Issues in Language Planning. 12(4), 457–501. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2011.628079

[25] Abdelhay, A., Eljak, N., Mugaddam, A., et al., 2016. Arabicisation and the Khartoum Arabic Language Academy. The Journal of North African Studies. 21(5), 831–856. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2016.1215248

[26] Garri, D.S.A., Mugaddam, A.R.H., 2015. Language and Identity in the Context of Conflict: The Case of Ethnolinguistic Communities in South Darfur State. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2015(235), 137–167. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2015-0018

[27] Aljohani, S., Mugaddam, A.H., 2025. The Impact of Foreign Language Anxiety on FL Speech Production of Saudi EFL Learners: Case Study of Saudi Secondary School Students in Medina Region. Forum for Linguistic Studies. 7(3), 150–162. DOI: https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i3.8355

[28] Alanazi, S.S., Mugaddam, A.H., 2025. The Role of Motivation in Learning English as a Foreign Language at Northern Border University. Forum for Linguistic Studies. 7(4), 574–587. DOI: https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i4.8861

Downloads

How to Cite

Mugaddam, A. H., & Alayyash, M. A. (2025). When Language Loyalty Doesn’t Work: The Case of a Small Language in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(11), 1063–1076. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i11.11400

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 11 (November 2025)

Article Type

Article

License

Copyright © 2025 Abdelrahim Hamid Mugaddam, Maha Abdulghafar Alayyash

Creative Commons License

This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.