One of the first collections of children’s books ever published in Nobiin, the most-spoken Nubian language in southern Egypt and northern Sudan, went to print in September. The books by three Nubian-Sudanese authors are written in the ancient alphabet used in Old Nubian manuscripts for centuries. The project is a collaboration with the independent publishing house Taras Press in London.

The collection consists of four illustrated books intended to introduce the Nubian alphabet, one of the oldest African writing traditions, to children. The books teach how to read, write and count in Nobiin and two storybooks are designed to build vocabulary and build the body of literature in Nubian and about Nubia. The project was financed through a crowdfunding campaign.

The collection “is ultimately made to be comprehensible to those who are already Nubian literate, and those who learn to be Nubian-literate through our books will hopefully be able to read most of what is written in Nubian,” Hatim Eujayl, one of the writers, told Al-Monitor.

Old Nubian is a literary language appearing in texts from the 8th to the 15th centuries in the Nubian kingdom of Makuria, located in what is today southern Egypt and northern Sudan, making it one of the earliest written languages in Africa and perhaps as old as the earliest written English. Present-day Nobiin has direct roots in Old Nobiin and is today the largest Nubian language with speakers mainly in Egypt, Sudan and the diaspora.