The Nuer language (Thok Naath, "people's language") is a Nilotic language of the Western Nilotic group. It is spoken by the Nuer people of South Sudan and in western Ethiopia (region of Gambela). The language is very similar to Dinka and Atuot.

The language is written with a Latin-based alphabet. There are several dialects of Nuer, although all share one written standard. For example, final , is pronounced in the Jikany dialect but is dropped in other dialects despite being indicated in the Nuer orthography used by all.

Phonology

A phonological analysis has yet to be done. The following consonants may therefore not all be distinct.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|+Consonants

! colspan="2" |

!Labial

!Dental

!Alveolar

!Palatal

!Velar

!Glottal

|-

! colspan="2" |Nasal

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

! rowspan="2" |Plosive

!<small>Voiceless</small>

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

!<small>Voiced</small>

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

! colspan="2" |Flap

|

|

|

|

|

|

|-

! colspan="2" |Approximant

|

|

|

|

|

|

|}

Voicing is not distinctive at the end of a stem, regardless of whether it's at the end of a word or utterance. Consonant clusters due to suffixes tend to be simplified.

Dental consonants are written th dh nh in the practical orthography. is written ɣ.

Vowels may be long or short, modal or breathy voiced. The latter are written with an underscore in the practical orthography, except for u and ä , where there is no modal-voiced vowel to contrast.

{| class="wikitable IPA"

|+Vowels

!

!Front

!Central

!Back

|-

!High

|i iː <br>i̤ i̤ː

|

| <br>ṳ ṳː

|-

!Close-mid

|e eː <br>e̤ e̤ː

|

|o oː <br>o̤ o̤ː

|-

!Open-mid

|ɛ ɛː <br>ɛ̤ ɛ̤ː

| <br>ə̤ ə̤ː

|ɔ ɔː <br>ɔ̤ ɔ̤ː

|-

!Near-low

|(æ æː <br>æ̤ æ̤ː)

|

|

|-

!Low

|

|

| aː <br>a̤ː

|}

is rare. (Curly brackets indicate the set of æ vowels.) Final is always breathy voiced. There does not appear to be a distinction between short a and ə. Breathy is pronounced or .

Faust & Grossman did not find strong evidence for lexical or grammatical tone, with a few exceptions such as the 1sg suffix and the plural suffix , which have a rising tone.

Nominal inflection

Nuer nouns inflect for two numbers, singular and plural, and three cases, nominative, genitive and locative. At first glance the inflection is wholly non-systematic and resists description in terms of paradigms: just two suffixes and are used in sixteen different patterns across the stock of nouns, together with different selections from around sixty stem alternations, a situation that Baerman called "paradigmatic chaos". Further research has identified more constraints and regularities governing Nuer nominal inflection.

The most readily identifiable plural formation processes are: suffixation, vowel insertion, phonation, vowel quality change, final consonant alteration, vowel deletion, glide insertion, tone change, vowel lengthening, vowel shortening, suppletion, and zero or null formation, among other processes when the entire language is taken into account.

Nuer-speaking Sudanese refugees have formed a significant community in Omaha, Nebraska, United States.

Sample phrases

Nuer:&nbsp; Naath dial diethɛ kɛ a lɔr kä päärkɛ kɛ ciaŋ malä a mäni cuŋkiɛn. Tekɛ kɛ ca̱r kɛnɛ nhök ti de lät kɛ raan kɛ dämaan a gɔa.

English:&nbsp; “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”.

(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Writing system

The alphabet of Nuer uses 39 distinct letters, shown below in uppercase (majuscule) and lowercase (minuscule) styles.

{| style="border-collapse:collapse;background:lightyellow;border:2px solid gray;" cellpadding=9px 5px align=center width=90%

|- style="font-size:13px;"

! colspan=19 |Majuscules

|- style="font-size:18px;" align=center

| width=5% | A

| width=5% | A̱

| width=5% | Ä

| width=5% | B

| width=5% | C

| width=5% | D

| width=5% | Dh

| width=5% | E

| width=5% | E̱

| width=5% | Ë

| width=5% | Ɛ

| width=5% | Ɛ̱

| width=5% | Ɛ̈

| width=5% | G

| width=5% | Ɣ

| width=5% | H

| width=5% | I

| width=5% | I̱

| width=5% | J

|- style="font-size:18px;border-bottom:2px solid gray;" align=center

| width=5% | K

| width=5% | L

| width=5% | M

| width=5% | N

| width=5% | Ŋ

| width=5% | Nh

| width=5% | Ny

| width=5% | O

| width=5% | O̱

| width=5% | Ö

| width=5% | Ɔ

| width=5% | Ɔ̱

| width=5% | P

| width=5% | R

| width=5% | T

| width=5% | Th

| width=5% | U

| width=5% | W

| width=5% | Y

|- style="font-size:13px;"

! colspan=20 | Minuscules

|- style="font-size:18px;" align=center

| width=5% | a

| width=5% | a̱

| width=5% | ä

| width=5% | b

| width=5% | c

| width=5% | d

| width=5% | dh

| width=5% | e

| width=5% | e̱

| width=5% | ë

| width=5% | ɛ

| width=5% | ɛ̱

| width=5% | ɛ̈

| width=5% | g

| width=5% | ɣ

| width=5% | h

| width=5% | i

| width=5% | i̱

| width=5% | j

|- style="font-size:18px;" align=center

| width=5% | k

| width=5% | l

| width=5% | m

| width=5% | n

| width=5% | ŋ

| width=5% | nh

| width=5% | ny

| width=5% | o

| width=5% | o̱

| width=5% | ö

| width=5% | ɔ

| width=5% | ɔ̱

| width=5% | p

| width=5% | r

| width=5% | t

| width=5% | th

| width=5% | u

| width=5% | w

| width=5% | y

|-

|}

A line under a vowel, like a̱, means that it is pronounced with breathy voice. The vowels ä, u, and final i are always breathy. A doubled vowel, like in the word raan (person), means that vowel is long. Nuer does have tone, but tone-based contrasts are not common. Both the Dinka and the Nuer agreed that their languages were so different that they could never share written languages, but they did come up with several common principles.

  • final interdental consonants would always be represented as th.
  • all voiceless alveolo-palatal consonants would be represented as c.
  • the finalized Nuer alphabet consists of the following characters, which are equivalent to the phonemes of the Nuer language: d, k, l, m, n, p, t, w, g, j, r, y, ŋ, ny, th, dh, nh, ɣ, c, a, e, i, o, u, ö

See also

  • Dinka language
  • Nuer people
  • Dinka people
  • Western Nilotic languages
  • Nilotic languages

Further reading

References

  • Nuer Project - copious grammatical notes
  • Nuer Lexicon an interactive online dictionary of Nuer
  • OpenRoad page on Nuer (Thok Nath)
  • PanAfrican L10n page on Nuer
  • Omniglot page on Nuer
  • World Atlas of Language Structures information on Nuer
  • Wright Jay Frank, Nuer noun morphology, Master of Arts thesis, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1999 (online copy).
  • Nuer Dictionary