Dinka language
| Dinka | |
|---|---|
| Thuɔŋjäŋ | |
| Pronunciation | [t̪uɔŋ.ɟa̤ŋ] |
| Native to | South Sudan and neighboring areas |
| Ethnicity | Dinka people |
|
Native speakers
|
(1.4 million cited ca. 1982–1986; some figures undated) |
| Latin alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 |
Individual codes: dip – Northeastern (Padang) diw – Northwestern (Ruweng) dib – South Central (Agar) dks – Southeastern (Bor, Twic, Nyarweng & Hol) dik – Southwestern (Rek & Twic) |
| Glottolog | dink1262 |
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, Dinka Leekrieth and Bor, which are distinct enough to require separate literary standards and thus to be considered separate languages. Jaang, Jieng or Moinyjieng 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.
There are 20 consonant phonemes:
Dinka has a rich vowel system, with at least thirteen phonemically contrastive vowels. The underdots ([◌̤]) indicate "breathy" vowels, represented in Dinka orthography by diaereses (⟨◌̈⟩):
On top of this, there are three phonemically contrastive vowel lengths, a feature found in very few languages. Most Dinka verb roots are single, closed syllables with either a short or a long vowel. Some inflections lengthen that vowel:
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.
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 at the syllable level: Low, High, Mid, and Fall.
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