Dinka language

Dinka
Thuɔŋjäŋ
Pronunciation [t̪uɔŋ.ɟa̤ŋ]
Native to South Sudan and neighboring areas
Ethnicity Dinka people
Native speakers
 unknown (1.4 million cited ca. 1982–1986; some figures undated)[1]
Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-2 din
ISO 639-3 din – inclusive code
Individual codes:
dip – Northeastern (Padang)
diw – Northwestern (Ruweng)
dib – South Central (Agar)
dks – Southeastern (Bor, Twic, Nyarweng & Hol)
dik – Southwestern (Rek & Twic)
Glottolog dink1262[2]

Dinka, or Thuɔŋjäŋ, is a Nilotic dialect cluster spoken by the Dinka people, the major ethnic group of South Sudan. There are five main varieties, Ngok, Rek, Agaar, Twic, Dinka Leekrieth and Bor, which are distinct enough to require separate literary standards and thus to be considered separate languages. Jaang or Jieng is used as a general term to cover all Dinka languages. Rek is the standard and prestige dialect.

The closest non-Dinka language is Nuer, the language of the Dinka's traditional rivals. The Luo languages are also closely related.

The Dinka are found mainly along the Nile, specifically the west bank of the White Nile, a major tributary flowing north from Uganda, north and south of the Sudd marsh in southwestern and south central Sudan in three provinces: Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and Southern Kurdufan.

Linguistic features

See also: Dinka alphabet

Phonology

Consonants

There are 20 consonant phonemes:

Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n̪ n ɲ ŋ
Stop pb t̪d̪ td cɟ kɡ
Fricative ɣ
Approximant
(Lateral)		 j w
l
Rhotic ɾ

Vowels

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

On top of this, there are three phonemically contrastive vowel lengths, a feature found in very few languages.[3]

short ràaan ā-lèl "You are isolating a person."
long ràaan ā-lèel "He is isolating a person."
overlong lràaan ā-lèeel "He is provoking a person."

Voice quality is also a factor, with four different phonetic types present: modal voice, breathy voice, faucalized voice, and harsh voice in its vowels. Of these, only modal and breathy are phonologically contrastive.[4]

Tone

The extensive use of tone and its interaction with morphology is a notable feature of all dialects of Dinka. The Bor dialects all have four tonemes: Low, High, Mid, and Fall.[5] What is more unusual is that in some dialects there is also a low-fall tone, which appears to differ from the fall primarily in the alignment within the syllable of a peak that defines the beginning of a falling contour. In other words, one peaks earlier than the other. This is interesting because it had been theorized that such timing differences were never phonemic.[6]

Morphology

This language exhibits vowel ablaut or apophony, the change of internal vowels (similar to English goose/geese, though this is historically an umlaut):[7]

Singular Plural gloss vowel alternation
dom dum 'field/fields' (o–u)
kat kɛt 'frame/frames' (a–ɛ)

Dialects of Dinka

Linguists divide Dinka into five languages or dialect clusters corresponding to their geographic location with respect to each other:

Northeastern and -western: Abiliang, Nyiël, Dongjol, Luäc, Ngok Lual Yak, Ageer, Rut, Thoi, Alor, Ngók Deng Kuol, Panaru, and Paweny.

South Central: Aliap, Ciëc, Gok, and Agar

Southeastern: Bor, Hol, Nyaarweng, and Twïc

Southwestern: Rek, Abiëm, Aguók, Apuk, Awan, Kuac, Lóu, Luäc/Luänyjang, Malual (Malualgiėrnyang), Paliët, Paliëupiny, Twïc

See Ethnologue online map of Sudan for locations of dialects.

Writing Dinka

Main article: Dinka alphabet

Dinka has been written with several Latin alphabets since the early 20th century. The current alphabet is:

a ä b c d dh e ë ɛ ɛ̈ g ɣ i ï j k l m n nh ny ŋ t th u w o ö ɔ ɔ̈ p r y

Variants in other alphabets include:

Current letter Alternatives
ɛ
 ė ("e" with a dot on top)
ɣ
 h, x, q
ŋ
 ng
ɔ
 ȯ ("o" with a dot on top)

See also

References

  1. ↑ Dinka at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Northeastern (Padang) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Northwestern (Ruweng) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    South Central (Agar) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Southeastern (Bor, Twic, Nyarweng & Hol) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Southwestern (Rek & Twic) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Dinka". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ Remijsen, Bert (2013). "Tonal alignment is contrastive in falling contours in Dinka". Language 89 (2): 297–327. doi:10.1353/lan.2013.0023.
  4. ↑ Remijsen, Bert (2013). "Tonal alignment is contrastive in falling contours in Dinka". Language 89 (2): 297–327. doi:10.1353/lan.2013.0023.
  5. ↑ Remijsen, Bert (2013). "Tonal alignment is contrastive in falling contours in Dinka". Language 89 (2): 297–327. doi:10.1353/lan.2013.0023.
  6. ↑ Silverman, Daniel (1997). "Tone sandhi in Comaltepec Chinantec". Language 73: 473–92. doi:10.2307/415881.
  7. ↑ After Bauer 2003:35

Other resources

  • Andersen T. (1987). "The phonemic system of Agar Dinka". Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 9, 1–27.
  • Andersen T. (1990). "Vowel length in Western Nilotic languages". Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 22, 5–26.
  • Andersen T. (1991). "Subject and topic in Dinka". Studies in Language 15, 265–294.
  • Andersen T. (1993). "Vowel quality alternation in Dinka verb inflection". Phonology 10, 1–42.
  • Beltrame, G. (1870). Grammatica della lingua denka. Firenze: G. Civelli.
  • Deng, Makwei Mabioor (2010). Piööcku Thuoŋjäŋ: The Elementary Modern Standard Dinka (Multilingual Edition), Xlibris, ISBN 1-4500-5240-1.
  • Malou, Job. (1988) 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)

External links