Dinik language
| Afitti | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Sudan |
| Region | North Kordofan |
| Ethnicity | Afitti |
|
Native speakers
|
4,000 (2009) |
|
Nilo-Saharan?
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | afit1238 |
Afitti (also known as Dinik, Ditti, or Unietti) is a language spoken on the eastern side of Jebel el-Dair, a solitary rock formation in the North Kordofan province of Sudan. Although the term ‘Dinik’ can be used to designate the language regardless of cultural affiliation, people in the villages of the region readily recognize the terms ‘Ditti’ and ‘Afitti.’ There are approximately 4000 speakers of the Afitti language and its closest linguistic neighbor is the Nyimang language, spoken west of Jebel el-Dair in the Nuba Mountains of the South Kordofan province of Sudan.
The Afitti live to the east of Jebel el-Dair. They previously resided at the base of the mountain, but after World War I increasing numbers of cattle and overcrowding drove them down the mountain to the plain where they resettled on farms. As a result of these movements the towns of Kitra in the north, Kundukur in the east, and Sidra towards the south were established. Because of an increase in the number of cattle, a separate group was forced to settle at the foot of Jebel Dambir, further northeastwards. Cattle herders from Sidra settled to the southwest of Dambir and those from Kitra to the northeast. Today, the people of Kitra are known as “Ditti” while the others are known as "Afitti", but the dialects have only minor lexical differences between them.
When a drought struck the country in 1984, the majority of the cattle herders lost their livestock and became farmers; consequently, Afitti and Ditti speakers no longer herd cattle. In the 1950s, when Islam entered the area, the process of conversion began and today all speakers of Afitti are considered Muslim. Arabic has become the main language of communication, especially for the Afitti speakers; the local school also uses Arabic for teaching.The change of occupation for the cattle herders, the modernization in Sidra, and the overall dominance of Arabic have combined to reduce the overall importance of Afitti as well as decreasing speaker proficiency. Loanwords pervade the language, and it is only the Ditti who raise their children until school-going age without the use of Arabic.
The table below displays the consonants of Afitti; sounds in parentheses are of uncertain phonemic status.
Afitti has nasals and plosives at four places of articulation: aveolar, bilabial, velar, and palatal. The plosives have a voicing contrast primarily found in word-initial position. This distinction is mostly lost in intervocalic position with neutralization in favor of the voiced variant. The majority of plosives are voiceless in final position due to a devoicing process affecting other sounds as well.
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