Shilluk (natively ''Dhøg Cøllø'' or ''d̪ɔ́cɔ̀llɔ̀'') is a language spoken by the
Shilluk people of
South Sudan and
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
. It is closely related to other
Luo languages. The term Shilluk is a pronunciation of
Arabic origin.
Phonology
Vowels
Each of these vowels also exists in a long form and an overlong form which are
phonemic.
Advanced and retracted tongue root
Shilluk, like most Nilotic languages, differentiates vowels according to their place of articulation. They are either pronounced with
advancement of the root of the tongue or with retraction of the root of the tongue. Gilley uses the terms "extended larynx" or "blown vowel".
The vowels with advancement of the root of the tongue are , , , , and their corresponding long variants. The vowels with retraction of the root of the language are denoted by a
macron
Macron may refer to:
People
* Emmanuel Macron (born 1977), president of France since 2017
** Brigitte Macron (born 1953), French teacher, wife of Emmanuel Macron
* Jean-Michel Macron (born 1950), French professor of neurology, father of Emmanu ...
below the letter: , , , , and and their corresponding long variants.
Consonants
Tone
Shilluk has a rich inventory of
tones, with at least seven distinctive tone patterns or tonemes.
There are three level tonemes: Low, Mid and High. In addition, there are four contours – the Rise and three falling configurations: Fall, High Fall and Late Fall. These are denoted by the following diacritics:
Orthography
A
Latin alphabet was developed for Shilluk by
Christian missionaries in the early 20th century. There are 29 characters in Shilluk orthography; 10 vowels and 19 consonants.
Syllable structure
Uninflected native stem
syllables
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
are overwhelmingly monosyllabic. With few exceptions, these monosyllabic stems typically consist of an onset, a vowel (nucleus), and a coda. Their structure is as follows:
C (Cj/w) V (V) (V) C
Grammar
Morphology
Monosyllabic stems give rise to polysyllabic words through processes of
derivation or
inflection. For verbs and nouns alike, the most common prefixes are /a- ʊ-/, and the most common suffixes are /-Cɪ -ɪ -a (-ɔ)/.
Further, alternations of vowel length and tone play an important part in inflectional morphology.
Verbs
Transitive verb classes
Shilluk transitive verbs have a phonological root that consists of a single closed syllable of the form /C(j/w)V(V)C/. "That is, the root vowel is either short or long, and clustering of consonants is restricted to the onset, where either of the semivowels /w,j/ may follow another consonant."
There are seven classes distinguished by alternations in terms of vowel length and tone.
Nouns
Noun inflection is characterised by
head marking:
pertensive and
construct-state are both inflections that mark the
head
A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...
, not the
dependent
A dependant is a person who relies on another as a primary source of income. A common-law spouse who is financially supported by their partner may also be included in this definition. In some jurisdictions, supporting a dependant may enab ...
. For example, English has ''a person's rodent'', where the head is ''rodent'' and the possessive marking is on the dependent ''person's''. In contrast, Shilluk has a pertensive affix on the head (e.g., ''dúup'' = "rodent", ''dû́uup'' = "rodent belonging to").
is marked, but no predictable system has been identified. Instead, there are over 140 different patterns of number marking on nouns.
in Shilluk are nouns.
Sample text
Shilluktext.gif, Gwɛtti Dhɔ Cɔlɔ mi tyɛli malɔ
Shilluktext000.GIF, Gwedd ki Dhøg Cøllø men nyänø
Shilluktext2.GIF, Cigg dyërø mi dhaanhø ki Dhøg Cøllø ki yij wänyø mi cigg Pödh Cøllø
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shilluk Language
Luo languages
Languages of Sudan
Languages of South Sudan