In Old Nubia, that is, before the 1964 resettlement (see Chapter 6), the Nubian language was resistant to Arabic interference because it was an undisputed language in a remote place. Women and children were mostly monolingual Nubian speakers. Men in general spoke both Nubian and Arabic due to the fact that they had to travel to cities such as Cairo and Alexandria looking for wage labor. However, there is a noticeable difference in the trend of migration after the resettlement of 1964. Labor migration to big cities is not as high as it was prior to resettlement, due to the availability of job opportunities in New Nubia.

Nubians can be found as well-entrenched and well-assimilated urbanized groups in cities, and on the other hand as non-urbanized groups living in Southern Egypt in small villages. Groups in several types of locations were chosen for this study. The first group was drawn from isolated villages, where Nubian inhabitants must take a bus to go to the nearest city. The second group was drawn from villages near Aswan, where Nubians can walk or cross the river by boat to that city. The third and final group was drawn from the cities of Aswan, Cairo, and Alexandria, where Nubian men work, but still maintain a home in their Nubian village in Southern Egypt. The different locations were chosen because they give a representative sample of urban, quasi-urban, and non-urban Nubian speakers.

In the new community created after the resettlement of 1964, the Egyptian Nubians came into closer contact with non-Nubian Egyptians. Nubian, an East Sudanic language, came into contact with a dominant Semitic language, Arabic.