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

Dinka

The Dinka is an ethnic group inhabiting the Bahr el Ghazal region of the Nile basin, Jonglei and parts of southern Kordufan and Upper Nile regions. They are mainly agro-pastoral people, relying on cattle herding at riverside camps in the dry season and growing millet and other varieties of grains ...

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Dinka, or , is a Nilotic dialect cluster spoken by the Dinka people, the major ethnic group of South Sudan

South Sudan

South Sudan , officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country located in the Sahel region of northeastern Africa. It is also part of the North Africa UN sub-region. Its current capital is Juba, which is also its largest city; the capital city is planned to be moved to the more...

. There are five main varieties, Ngok, Rek, Agaar, Twic / Tuic East, 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. The Malual dialect (Aweil) is the prestige dialect

Prestige dialect

In sociolinguistics, prestige describes the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community. The concept of prestige in sociolinguistics is closely related to that of prestige or class within a society...

.

The closest non-Dinka language is Nuer

Nuer language

The Nuer language is a Nilo-Saharan language of the Western Nilotic group. It is spoken by the Nuer people of South Sudan and in western Ethiopia. Nuer is one of eastern and central Africa's most widely spoken languages. The Nuer nation is one of the largest in South Sudan.Nuer language has a...

, the language of the Dinka's traditional rivals. The Luo languages

Luo languages

The Nilotic Luo languages, or Lwoian, are a dozen languages spoken by the Luo peoples in an area ranging from southern Sudan via Uganda to southern Kenya, with Dholuo extending into northern Tanzania and Alur into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They form one of the two branches of Western...

 are also closely related.

The Dinka are found mainly along the Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

, specifically the west bank of the White Nile

White Nile

The White Nile is a river of Africa, one of the two main tributaries of the Nile from Egypt, the other being the Blue Nile. In the strict meaning, "White Nile" refers to the river formed at Lake No at the confluence of the Bahr al Jabal and Bahr el Ghazal rivers...

, a major tributary flowing north from Uganda, north and south of the Sudd

Sudd

The Sudd , also known as the Bahr al Jabal, As Sudd or Al Sudd, is a vast swamp in South Sudan, formed by the White Nile. The word “sudd” is derived from the Arabic word “sadd”, meaning “block.” The term has come to refer to any large solid floating vegetation island or mat...

 marsh in southwestern and south central Sudan in three provinces: Bahr el Ghazal

Bahr el Ghazal

The Bahr el Ghazal is a region of western South Sudan. Its name comes from the river Bahr el Ghazal.- Geography :The region consists of the states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Western Bahr el Ghazal, Lakes, and Warrap. It borders Central African Republic to the west...

, Upper Nile, and Southern Kurdufan

Kurdufan

Kurdufan , also spelled Kordofan, is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kurdufan, South Kurdufan, and West Kurdufan...

.

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 Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...		Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
	plain	breathy Breathy voice Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...	plain	breathy Breathy voice Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i	i̤	u
Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...	e	e̤	o	o̤
Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...	ɛ	ɛ̤	ɔ	ɔ̤
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...			ɑ	a̤

There may be other distinctions. The Dinka southeastern dialect is known to contrast modal voice, breathy voice, faucalized voice

Faucalized voice

Faucalized voice, also called hollow or yawny voice, is the production of speech sounds with an expanded laryngeal cavity. It contrasts with harsh voice, in which the larynx is compressed....

, and harsh voice

Harsh voice

Harsh voice, also called ventricular voice or pressed voice, is the production of speech sounds with a constricted laryngeal cavity, which generally involves epiglottal co-articulation...

 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]. Examples are,

Voice	modal	breathy	harsh	faucalized
Bor Dinka	tɕìt̪	tɕì̤t̪	tɕìt̪	tɕì͈t̪
	diarrhea	go ahead	scorpions	to swallow

There are twenty consonant phonemes:

	Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	Dental	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m	n̪	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	p   b	t̪   d̪	t   d	c   ɟ	k   ɡ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...					ɣ
Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...			ɾ
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...			l	j	w

Morphology

This language exhibits vowel ablaut or apophony

Apophony

In linguistics, apophony is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information .-Description:Apophony is...

, 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)

Dialects of Dinka

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

• Northeastern and western (Padang Dialects): Abiliang, Nyiël, Dongjol, Luäc, Ngok Lual Yak, Ageer, Rut, Thoi, Alor, Ngók Deng Kuol, Panaru and Paweny.
• South Central (Agar Dialects): Aliap, Ciëc, Atuöt, Gok and Agar
• Southeastern (Southeastern Dinka Dialects): Bor,Hol,Nyaarweng and Twïc
• Southwestern (Rek Dialects): 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

Dinka is written with a Latin-based alphabet. There have been variants since the early 20th century, but the current alphabet is:


However, some of the above letters can be written in other ways (or other letters can be used in their places) but the letters/special characters used are still being pronounced as the original letters that they represent. These are:

Original Letter	other ways to write it
	("e" with a dot on top.)
	h, x, q
	ng
	("O" with a dot on top.)

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 1450052401.
• 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

• OpenRoad page on Dinka
• Dinka Language Institute (Australia) (DLIA) multilingual site on Dinka, including in Dinka
• SIL page on Dinka "macrolanguage" (access to SIL & Ethnologue pages)
• PanAfrican L10n page on Dinka
• Dinka alphabet on Answer.com