Toposa (also Akara, Kare, Kumi, Taposa, Topotha) is a

Nilo-Saharan language The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributarie ...

(

Eastern Sudanic In most classifications, the Eastern Sudanic languages are a group of nine families of languages that may constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania. N ...

Nilotic The Nilotic peoples are peoples Indigenous people of Africa, indigenous to South Sudan and the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambela Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uga ...

) spoken in

South Sudan South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...

by the

Toposa people The Toposa are a Nilotic ethnic group in South Sudan, living in the Greater Kapoeta region of Eastern Equatoria state. They have traditionally lived by herding cattle, sheep and goats, and in the past were involved in the ivory trade. They hav ...

. Mutually intelligible language varieties include Jiye of South Sudan, Nyangatom of Ethiopia,

Karimojong The Karamojong or Karimojong are a Nilotic ethnic group. They are agro-pastoral herders living mainly in the north-east of Uganda. Their language is also known as ngaKarimojong and is part of the Nilotic language family. Their population is est ...

, Jie and Dodos of Uganda and Turkana of Kenya.

Teso Teso or TESO may refer to: Places * Têso, a Portuguese hamlet * Teso District, Kenya, a defunct administrative district in the former Western Province of Kenya * Teso District, Uganda, a district in Uganda now known as Teso sub-region Language ...

(spoken in both Kenya and Uganda) is lexically more distant.

Phonology

Consonants

*All consonants (except, of course, for /w/ and /j/) can occur in labialized and palatalized forms.

Vowels

*Toposa, like many Nilotic languages, has vowel harmony with two sets of vowels: a set with the tongue root advanced (+ATR) and a −ATR set. +ATR is marked. The vowel is neutral with respect to vowel harmony. *All nine vowels also occur as devoiced, contrasting with their voiced counterparts. These voiceless vowels occur primarily in prepause contexts. Some Toposa morphemes consist only of a high voiceless vowel; the functional load appears to be much greater with the high vowels than with the lower.Schröder & Schröder 1987a, p. 17 *Toposa has tone, which is grammatical rather than lexical. Tone is used to mark case in nouns and tense in verbs.

Bibliography

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References

{{Authority control Languages of South Sudan Eastern Nilotic languages