Dinka language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is for the language, for the ethnic group see Dinka.

Dinka
Thuɔŋjäŋ 
Pronunciation: /t̪u.ɔŋ.dʒa̤ŋ/
Spoken in: southern Sudan and neighboring areas 
Region: Western Africa
Total speakers: 2-3 million
Language family: Eastern Sudanic
 Western Nilotic
  Dinka-Nuer languages
   Dinka 
Writing system: Latin alphabet 
Official status
Official language in: none
Regulated by: none
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: din
ISO 639-3: variously:
dip – Northeastern Dinka (Padang)
diw – Northwestern Dinka (Ruweng)
dib – South Central Dinka (Agar)
dks – Southeastern Dinka (Bor)
dik – Southwestern Dinka (Rek)
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Dinka language, or Thuɔŋjäŋ 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

[edit] Linguistic features

See also: Dinka alphabet

[edit] Phonology

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

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

There may be other distinctions. The Bor (southeastern) dialect is known to contrast modal voice, breathy voice, faucalized voice, and harsh voice in its vowels, in addition to its three tones. The ad hoc diacritics employed in the literature are a subscript double quotation mark for faucalized voice, [a͈], and an underline for harsh voice, [a].[1] Examples are,

Voice modal breathy harsh faucalized
Bor Dinka ʨìt̪ ʨì̤t̪ ʨìt̪ ʨì͈t̪
diarrhea go ahead scorpions to swallow

There are twenty consonant phonemes:

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

[edit] Morphology

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

Singular Plural gloss vowel alternation
dom dum 'field/fields' (o-u)
kat kɛt 'frame/frames' (a-ɛ)
(Bauer 2003:35)

[edit] Tones

Dinka is a tonal language.

[edit] 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),Duk (Nyarweng and Hol) Tuic
  • Southwestern (Rek) (Dialects: Rek, Abiem, Aguok, Apuk, Awan, Kuac,Lau, Luac/Luanyang, Malual, Paliet, Palioupiny, Tuic)

(See Ethnologue online map of Sudan for locations of dialects

[edit] Writing Dinka

Main article: Dinka alphabet

Dinka is written with a Latin-based alphabet. There have been variants since the early 20th century, but the current alphabet is: a ä b c d dh e ë ɛ ɛ̈ g ɣ i ï k l m n nh ny ŋ o ö ɔ ɔ̈ p r t th u w y

[edit] External links

[edit] 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)

[edit] See also