Photo provide by the Nubian Voices project.
In 2019 as part of a social media campaign to celebrate linguistic diversity online [1], African language activists and advocates will be taking turns managing the @DigiAfricanLang [2] Twitter account to share their experiences with the revitalization and promotion of African languages. This profile post is about Doaa of the project Nubian Voices. (@TheNubianVoices [3]) and what she plans to discuss during her week as host.
Rising Voices: Please tell us about yourself.
I am a Nubian Egyptian journalist living in Cairo. I launched an initiative in July 2018 called “The Nubian Voices”. The initiative aims to give Nubians an opportunity to speak up, because Nubians are underreported in mainstream media. We focus on the Nubian Language and efforts to keep it. We feature all Nubian projects, startups and organizations that keep conversations about Nubia going.
RV: What is the current status of your language on the internet and offline?
The Nubian Language has long been neglected in Egypt. There are no official efforts to document the language or its letters so it is subject to disappear. The only way for young Nubians to learn the Nubian language is verbally through the old generation because they would find no book to go back to. However, there has been some good efforts in that recently through blogs and mobile-based applications to document and save the language.
RV: On what topics do you plan to focus during the week that you’ll manage the @DigiAfricanLang Twitter account?
I am planning to focus on the efforts to preserve the Nubian Language and protect it from disappearing. The Language used to be written and read, but majority of Nubians don't know how to do that because there is no practice. We don't want that to happen with the spoken language.
RV: What are the main motivations for your digital activism for your language? What are your hopes and dreams for your language?
My main motivation is to create an online platform where all Nubian projects and we initiatives will be gathered in one place. The platform will have a separate interactive section for the Nubian Language. This section can be the start of a physical book teaching the Nubian Language.