Language-Dinka

Language is something that everyone can relate to. Citizenship can be changed, along with religion. But with language, it reminds us of our cultural identity.
Language includes the way people speak with peers in their group. People speak differently with their friends and family than with strangers. Language is a main component of cultural identity.
Language develops from the wants of the people who tend to disperse themselves in a common given location over a particular period of time. This tends to allow people to share a way of life that generally links individuals in a certain culture that is identified by the people of that group. The affluence of communication that comes along with sharing a language promotes connections and roots to ancestors and cultural histories.

Dinka Language

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 (⟨◌̈⟩):


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

                          

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.

Harsh voice, also called ventricular voice or (in some high-tone registers) pressed voice, is the production of speech sounds (typically vowels) with a constricted laryngeal cavity, which generally involves epiglottal co-articulation. Harsh voice includes the use of the ventricular folds (the false vocal cords) to damp the glottis in a way similar to what happens when a person talks while lifting a heavy load, or, if the sound is voiceless, like clearing one's throat

   

                                 A Canadian  women from Alberta  learning the Dinka language in  one year.

Morphology

This language exhibits vowel ablaut or apophony, the change of internal vowels (similar to English goose/geese, though this is historically an umlaut):

In linguistics, apophony is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information (often inflectional).  Apophony is exemplified in English as the internal vowel alternations that produce such related words as

• sing, sang, sung, song
• rise, raise
• bind, bound
• goose, geese

The difference in these vowels marks variously a difference in tense or aspect (e.g. sing/sang/sung), transitivity (rise/raise), part of speech (sing/song, bind/bound), or grammatical number (goose/geese).

Spelling Punctuation and Grammar/Alphabet

There are thirty three letters in the Dinka alphabet. There are thirteen vowels and twenty consonants.

The vowels are divided into two categories: hard or clear vowels and breathy vowels. There are seven hard/clear vowels and six breathy vowels. Breathy vowels are differentiated by the use of a diaeresis over the vowel.

The clear/hard vowels are:

            A a      E e      Ɛ ɛ      I i      O o      Ɔ ɔ      U u

The breathy vowels are:

            Ä ä      Ë ë      Ɛ̈ ɛ̈      Ï ï      Ö ö      Ɔ̈ ɔ̈

The consonants are:

            B b      C c      D d      Dh dh      G g      Ɣ ɣ      J j      K k      L l      M m

            N n      Nh nh      Ny ny      Ŋ ŋ      P p      R r      T t      Th th      W w      Y y

Four of the consonants are digraphs. These are dh, nh, ny and th. The digraphs are treated as single characters. The character h does not exist in Dinka as a single letter.

The modern sort order of the Dinka alphabet is:

a, ä, b, c, d, dh, e, ë, ɛ, ɛ̈, g, ɣ i, ï, j, k, l, m, n, nh, ny, ŋ,
o, ö, ɔ, ɔ̈, p, r, t, th, u, w, y.

The current Dinka orthography indicates specific vowel qualities: the distinction between breathy vowels (Indicated by a diaresis) and hard or clear vowels (vowels without diaeresis).

Long vowels are indicated by doubling the vowel, e.g. a long a is indicated by aa.

Tone and vowel centralisation are not indicated. Since these additional vowel qualities are unindicated in written Dinka. It is very important to listen to native Dinka speakers, and note the distinction they make when pronouncing words.

Dinka Vowel Length

The other essential aspect of Dinka language is the varied length of the vowels. Unlike the breathiness and the tone of the vowels, this feature is easy and non-controversial.

Nyaŋ (male name, crocodile) Nyaaŋ (female name of person, color)

Gak (crow) Gaak (sea shell)

Yak (drought, name of person) Yaak (absence of rain, drought)

Dai (old woman) Daai (watching)

Mäth (smoking, friend) Määth (friendship)

Bai (failure to see or discern) Baai (home, family, country, nation, homeland)

Tem (cut it—as in command) Teem (s/he cut it)

Spelling, punctuation and vocabulary

Dinka is written with a Latin-based alphabet. There have been variants since the early 20th century, but the current alphabet is: a ä b c d dh e ë ɛ ɛ̈ g ɣ i ï j k l m n nh ny ŋ t th u w o ö ɔ ɔ̈ p r y

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
ɛ	ė ("e" with a dot on top.)
ɣ	h, x, q
ŋ	ng
ɔ	ȯ ("O" with a dot on top.)

-Two different voice qualities in vowels:  ‘breathy’ and ‘non-breathy’ (or creaky vowels)

-Three phonetic vowel lengths: short, medium long and long

-Three tones: high, low and falling

-No grammatical gender

-Verbs do not change with person

Archived at:http://www.sprak.gu.se/digitalAssets/1309/1309450_modern-developments-dinka.pdf

Dinka is a highly fusional language with many words being monosyllabic.  It has a complex vowel system with a number of different vowel alternations, which play an important grammatical role.