The Atwot (Reel) are a

Nilotic The Nilotic peoples are people indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun-sp ...

ethnic group of

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the C ...

who live near

Yirol Yirol is a city in South Sudan. Location It is located in ''Yirol West County'', Lakes (state), Lakes State, in central South Sudan. Its location lies approximately , by road, northwest of Juba, South Sudan, Juba, the largest city in South Suda ...

Eastern Lakes State Eastern Lakes State was a state in South Sudan that existed between 2 October 2015 and 22 February 2020. It was located in the Bahr el Ghazal region and it bordered Southern Liech to the north, Western States to the west, Amadi to the southwes ...

. 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. See also * Atwot people * Nilotic languages * Western Nilotic languages The Western Nilotic ...

(Atwot: ''Thok Reel''), which was first recognized as a separate language from

Dinka The Dinka people ( din, Jiɛ̈ɛ̈ŋ) are a Nilotes, Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan with a sizable diaspora population abroad. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Jonglei to Renk, South Sudan, Renk, in the region of Bahr el Gh ...

by anthropologist John Burton in 1987. It is a

Western Nilotic language The Western Nilotic languages are one of the three primary branches of the Nilotic languages, along with the Eastern Nilotic languages and Southern Nilotic languages; Themselves belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan. The abou ...

of the Dinka-Nuer group, closely related to the

Nuer language The Nuer language (Thok Naath) ("people's language") is a Nilotic languages, Nilotic language of the Western Nilotic languages, Western Nilotic group. It is spoken by the Nuer people, Nuer people of South Sudan and in western Ethiopia (region of ...

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 International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...

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 Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The anim ...

pastoralists Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The animal s ...

, meaning that while the travel with their herds to grazing grounds, they don't go far from where they had started. There are seven subsections of the Atuot: Jilek, Luac, Jikeyi (Rorkec), Kuek, Apak, 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''. The Apak speak Thong Apak which is 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 ( 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 ...

ese

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

was 103,190 although not all inhabitants of the municipality are Atwot.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{authority control Ethnic groups in South Sudan