DINKA LANGUAGE

''This article is for the language, for the ethnic group see Dinka.''
The 'Dinka language', or '' as it is known in the language itself, is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Dinka, one of the largest and most powerful ethnic groups in Southern Sudan. With 2-3 million speakers, it exists in five major dialect divisions. ''Jaang'' is also used as a general term to cover all Dinka languages. The dialect of the Rek of Tonj is considered the "standard" or prestige variety.
It is further classified as part of the Dinka-Nuer subfamily, which is part of Western Nilotic, which in turn is part of Eastern Sudanic, the Nilo-Saharan subfamily with the largest number of member languages (95). Most closely related is Nuer, the language of the Dinka's traditional rivals. Other major languages closely related within Western Nilotic are Shilluk, Luo/Dholuo and Acholi. (SIL ''Ethnologue'', 2005 data)
"Nilotic" indicates that its speakers are found mainly along the Nile, specifically the west bank of the White Nile, a major tributary flowing northwards from Uganda. The Dinka live north and south of the marshy Sudd area in southwestern and south central Sudan in three provinces: Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and Southern Kordofan. (See the Gurtong Peace Trust's Dinka ethnic distribution map.)

Contents

Linguistic features

Phonology

Morphology

Tones

Dialects of Dinka

External links

Other resources

See also

Linguistic features

Phonology

Dinka has a rich vowel system, with 13 phonemically contrastive vowels. The underdots (<>) indicate "breathy" vowels. (represented in Dinka orthography by diaereses <¨>):

	Front		Back
	plain	breathy	plain	breathy
Close	i	i̤		ṳ
Close-mid	e	e̤	o	o̤
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛ̤	ɔ	ɔ̤
Open			a	a̤

There are 20 consonant phonemes:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n̪	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	p b	t̪	t d	c ɟ	k g
Fricative		ð				ɦ
Rhotic			ɾ
Approximant			l	j	w

Morphology

This language practices vowel ablaut or apophony, the change of internal vowels (compare English ''goose/geese''):
:

Singular	Plural	gloss	vowel alternation
		'field/fields'	()
		'frame/frames'	()

: (Bauer 2003:35)

Tones

Dinka is a tonal language.

Dialects of Dinka

Linguists divide Dinka into five main dialects corresponding to their geographic location with respect to each other:

★ 'Northeastern' (Padang) (Dialects: Abiliang, Dongjol, Luac, Ngok-Sobat, Ageer, Rut, Thoi)

★ 'Northwestern' (Ruweng) (Dialects: Alor, Ngok-Kordofan, Pan Aru, Pawany)

★ 'South Central' (Agar) (Dialects: Aliap, Ciec, Gok, Agar)

★ 'Southeastern' (Bor) (Dialects: Bor (Athoc,Gok), Nyarweng, Tuic)

★ 'Southwestern' (Rek) (Dialects: Rek, Abiem, Aguok, Apuk, Awan, Lau, Luac/Luanyang, Malual, Paliet, Palioupiny, Tuic)
(See Ethnologue online map of Sudan for locations of dialects

External links

★ OpenRoad page on Dinka

★ Dinka Language Institute (Australia) (DLIA) multilingual site on Dinka, including in Dinka

★ SIL page on Dinka "macrolanguage" (access to SIL & ''Ethnologue'' pages)

★ PanAfrican L10n page on Dinka

★ Dinka alphabet on Answer.com

★ Dinka Language Institute (Australia) homepage.

Other resources

★ Beltrame, G. (1870). ''Grammatica della lingua denka''. Firenze: G. Civelli.

★ Malou, Job. ''Dinka Vowel System''. Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics. ISBN 0-88312-008-9.

★ Mitterrutzner, J. C. (1866). ''Die Dinka-Sprache in Central-Afrika; Kurze Grammatik, Text und Worterbuch''. Brixen: A. Weger.

★ Nebel, A. (1979). ''Dinka-English, English-Dinka dictionary''. 2nd. ed. Editrice Missionaria Italiana, Bologna.

★ Nebel, A. (1948). ''Dinka Grammar (Rek-Malual dialect) with texts and vocabulary''. Instituto Missioni Africane, Verona.

★ Trudinger. R. (1942-44). ''English-Dinka Dictionary''. Sudan Interior Mission

★ Tuttle. ''Milet Picture Dictionary English-Dinka''. (at WorldLanguage.com)

See also

★ Dinka people

★ Nilo-Saharan languages