The Atuot (Reel) are a
subsections of dinka ethnic group of
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 ...
who live near
Yirol in
Lakes State. They comprise a majority of the population in the
payam of
Yirol West.
Language
The Atwot people speak the
Atwot language
Reel, or Atwot, is a Nilotic language of South Sudan that is closely related to Nuer. They call themselves ''Reel''; ''Atwot'' is their Dinka name.
Phonology
Consonants
alternates with , with , and with . becomes near breathy vowels ...
(Atwot: ''Thok Reel''), which was first recognized as a separate language from
Dinka by anthropologist John Burton in 1987. It is a
Western Nilotic language of the Dinka-Nuer group, closely related to the
Nuer language and more distantly to the
Luo languages
The dozen Luo, Lwo or Lwoian languages are spoken by the Luo peoples in an area ranging from southern Sudan to western Ethiopia to southern Kenya, with Dholuo extending into northern Tanzania and Alur into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. ...
.
SIL International
SIL Global (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics International) is an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, to expan ...
estimate that the number of Atuot speakers is 50,000.
Atwot speakers distinguish two dialects to their language, ''Thok Reel Cieng Luai'' and ''Thok Reel Cieng Nhyam'' with ''Thok Reel Cieng Nhyam'' being the more lexically conservative of the two.
[Reid, pp. 20-21] Most Atwot are bilingual in Dinka and Atwot.
A distinctive feature of the language is its having of three contrastive vowel lengths.
Culture
The Atwot share much of their culture with their neighbours. Like the Dinka and Nuer, they are also
semi-sedentary cattle-herding pastoralists, meaning that while they travel with their herds to grazing grounds, they do not go far from where they had started.
There are six subsections of the Atuot: Jilek, Luac, Jikeyi (Rorkec), Kuek, Akot and Ajong. The Ajong subsection claims to speak their own dialect known as
Thok-ajong, a hard version of Thok Reel. Jikeyi and Kuek speak ''Thok Reel Cieng Nhyam''. The Luac, Jilek, and Akot speak ''Thok Reel Cieng Luai''.
In some moments, Apak (a Dinka section) is considered to be Atwot but they speak Thong Apak which is a dialect of
South Central Dinka.
Atwot country
There were approximately 24,700 Atwot at the time of the local dialect survey in 1987. SIL estimates that there were over 50,000 Atwot in 1998.
The population of Yirol West in the 2008
Sudan
Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...
ese
census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
was 103,190 although not all inhabitants of the municipality are Atwot.
See also
*
Reel language
*
Nilotic peoples
The Nilotic peoples are peoples 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, Uganda, the north eastern borde ...
*
Demographics of South Sudan
*
Geography of South Sudan
References
Bibliography
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Ethnic groups in South Sudan
Nilotic peoples
Lakes (state)