In recent times, research by Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst has shed more light on the relations between Nobiin and Dongolawi. The groups have been separated so long that they do not share a common identity; additionally, they differ in their traditions about their origins. The languages are clearly genetically related, but the picture is complicated by the fact that there are also indications of contact-induced language change (Bechhaus-Gerst 1996). Nobiin appears to have had a strong influence on Dongolawi, as evidenced by similarities between the phoneme inventories as well as the occurrence of numerous borrowed grammatical morphemes. This has led some to suggest that Dongolawi in fact is "a 'hybrid' language between old Nobiin and pre-contact Dongolawi" (Heine & Kuteva 2001:400). Evidence of the reverse influence is much rarer, although there are some late loans in Nobiin which are thought to come from Dongolawi (Bechhaus-Gerst 1996:306). The Nubian languages are part of the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan languages. On the basis of a comparison with seventeen other Eastern Sudanic languages, Thelwall (1982) considers Nubian to be most closely related to Tama, a member of the Taman group, with an average lexical similarity of just 22.2 per cent. Phonology Nobiin has open and closed syllables: 'mouth', 'woman', 'uncle', 'camel', 'blood'. Every syllable bears a tone. Long consonants are only found in intervocalic position, whereas long vowels can occur in initial, medial and final position. Phonotactically, there might be a weak relationship between the occurrence of consonant and vowel length: forms like 'climb' and 'be present' are found, but *dàrìl (short V + short C) and *dààrrìl (long V + long C) do not exist; similarly, 'grow' and 'lose (a battle)' occur, but not *féyìr and *fééyyìr. Vowels Nobiin has a five vowel system. The vowels and can be realised close or more open (as and , respectively). Vowels can be long or short, e.g. 'fear' (long ), 'fish-hook' (short ). However, many nouns are unstable with regard to vowel length; thus, : 'feast', : 'fire', : 'spear'. Diphthongs are interpreted as sequences of vowels and the glides and . Consonants Consonant length is contrastive in Nobiin, e.g. 'path' vs. 'kitchen'. Like vowel length, consonant length is not very stable; long consonants tend to be shortened in many cases (e.g. the Arabic loan 'shop' is often found as ). The phoneme has a somewhat marginal status as it only occurs as a