some reports that it was still spoken as far upstream as the 5th Nile cataract, if not Shendi. At the same time Nubian was still fairly wide-spread in Kordofan, although being on the backfoot. By the mid-20th century Nubian had become extinct in northern Kordofan.

In the 20th century, resettlement associated with the construction of the Aswan High Dam displaced tens of thousands of Nubians in Egypt; one long-term study estimates about