| Dinka | |
|---|---|
| Thuɔŋjäŋ | |
| Native to | South Sudan |
| Ethnicity | Dinka |
Native speakers | 4.2 million (2017)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | South Sudan |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | din |
| ISO 639-3 | din – inclusive codeIndividual codes: dip – Northeastern (Padang)diw – Northwestern (Ruweng)dib – South Central (Gok, Agar, Ciec, Apaak and Aliap)dks – Southeastern: (Bor, Nyarweng, Hol, Twi)dik – Southwestern (Rek & Twic) |
| Glottolog | dink1262 |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Dinka (nativelyThuɔŋjäŋ,Thuɔŋ ë Jiɛ̈ɛ̈ŋ or simplyJiɛ̈ɛ̈ŋ) orSouth Sudanese is aNiloticdialect cluster spoken by theDinka people, a major ethnic group ofSouth Sudan. There are several main varieties, such as Padang, Rek, Agaar, Ciec, Malual, Apaak, Aliab, Bor, Hol, Nyarweng, Twic East and Twic Mayardit, which are distinct enough (though mutually intelligible) to require separate literary standards. Jaang, Jieng or Muonyjieng is used as a general term to cover all Dinka languages. RecentlyAkutmɛ̈t Latueŋ Thuɔŋjäŋ (the Dinka Language Development Association) has proposed a unified written grammar of Dinka.
The language most closely related to Dinka is theNuer language. TheLuo languages are also closely related. The Dinka vocabulary shows considerable proximity toNubian, which is probably due to medieval interactions between the Dinka people and the kingdom ofAlodia.[2]
The Dinka are found mainly along theNile, specifically the west bank of theWhite Nile, a major tributary flowing north fromUganda, north and south of theSudd marsh inSouth Kordofan state ofSudan as well asBahr el Ghazal region andUpper Nile state of South Sudan.
There are 20 consonant phonemes:
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n̪ | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Stop | p | b | t̪ | d̪ | t | d | c | ɟ | k | ɡ |
| Fricative | ɣ | |||||||||
| Approximant (Lateral) | j | w | ||||||||
| l | ||||||||||
| Rhotic | ɾ | |||||||||
Dinka has a rich vowel system, with thirteen phonemically contrastive short vowels. There are seven vowel qualities plus a two-way distinction inphonation. The underdots,[◌̤], mark thebreathy voice series, represented in Dinka orthography by diaereses,⟨◌̈⟩. Unmarked vowels aremodal orcreaky voiced.
| 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 | ||
Four phonetic phonations have been described in Dinka vowels:modal voice, breathy voice,faucalized voice, andharsh voice. The modal series has creaky orharsh voice realizations in certain environments, while the breathy vowels arecentralized and have been described as being hollow voiced (faucalized). This is independent of tone.[3]
On top of this, there are three phonemically contrastivevowel lengths, a feature found in very few languages.[3]Most Dinka verb roots are single, closed syllables with either a short or a long vowel. Some inflections lengthen that vowel:
| short | ràaan ā-lèl | "You are isolating a person (ràaan)." |
| long | ràaan ā-lèel | "He is isolating a person." |
| overlong | lràaan ā-lèeel | "He is provoking a person." |
The extensive use oftone and its interaction with morphology is a notable feature of all dialects of Dinka. The Bor dialects all have four tonemes at the syllable level: Low, High, Mid, and Fall.[3]
In Bor proper, falling tone is not found on short vowels except as an inflection for the passive in the present tense. In Nyaarweng and Twïc[4] it is not found at all. In Bor proper, and perhaps in other dialects as well, Fall is only realized as such at the end of a prosodic phrase. Elsewhere it becomes High.
In Bor proper and perhaps other dialects, a Low tone is phonetically low only after another low tone. Elsewhere it is falling, but not identical to Fall: It does not become High in the middle of a phrase, and speakers can distinguish the two falling tones despite the fact that they have the same range of pitch. The difference appears to be in the timing: with Fall one hears a high level tone that then falls, whereas the falling allophone of Low starts falling and then levels out. (That is, one falls on the first mora of the vowel, whereas the other falls on the second mora.) This is unusual because it has been theorized that such timing differences are never phonemic.[5]
This language exhibits vowelablaut orapophony, the change of internal vowels (similar to Englishgoose/geese):[6]
| Singular | Plural | gloss | vowel alternation |
|---|---|---|---|
| dom | dum | 'field/fields' | (o–u) |
| kat | kɛt | 'frame/frames' | (a–ɛ) |
Linguists divide Dinka into five languages or dialect clusters corresponding to their geographic location with respect to each other:
Northeastern and western:
Western:
South Central:
Southeastern:
Southwestern:
Rek
These would be largely mutually intelligible if it were not for the importance of tone in grammatical inflection, as the grammatical function of tone differs from one variety to another.
See Ethnologue onlinemap of Sudan for locations of dialects.
Dinka has been written with severalLatin alphabets since the early 20th century. The current alphabet is:
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) |
A dedicated Dinka script was created by Aleu Majok Aleu.[7]
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights[8]
Dinka: Raan tök ëbɛn aye dhiëëth ka lääu nhöm kua thöŋ nhiim eyithiic. Kua thɛ̈kic, kua ci yëknhiethku puou, ku bik ceŋ ka ke ye mith etik.
English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
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