The Uduk are a

Nilo-Saharan 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 tributari ...

group from southeastern

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 ...

. They speak

Uduk Uduk can refer to: * Uduk people, an ethnic group from eastern Sudan, south of the Blue Nile River. This ethnic group continues to identify as Kwanim Pa (uduk), and is the only ethnic group who can still relate to the Kemetic ancient people of moder ...

, a Koman language. They call themselves ''Kwanim Pa'' and are culturally and

linguistically Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures i ...

related to neighboring communities, such as the Gumuz and the Kwama from the Sudan-Ethiopia borderland. Due to the recent war in southern Sudan they have been forced to emigrate to other countries, especially

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. Following the peace agreement in 2005, some Uduk have started to return home. The Uduk adhere to their traditional religion along with Christianity or Islam which incorporates traditional beliefs and practices.

References

* James, Wendy. 1979. ''`Kwanim Pa: The making of the Uduk people''. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Sudan Update
Koman peoples Ethnic groups in Sudan {{Sudan-stub