From the different local languages spoken in antiquity in Nubia and central Sudan, only one, Meroitic, is well documented, although it is not yet fully deciphered. It was actually the only language of Nubia endowed with a specific script, but only in its latest stages, from the 3rd century BC on. Other languages such as those of the Medjay people, the Blemmyes and the Nobas, are known only through traces in the Egyptian and Meroitic texts, which can nevertheless be compared with their medieval (Old Nubian) or modern (Bedja) offshoots. These languages belong to two phyla (or linguistic superfamilies) still present in the region today, namely Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan, which appeared in early Neolithic times at the latest.