The Daju languages are spoken in isolated pockets by the

Daju people The Daju people are a group of seven distinct ethnicities speaking related languages (see Daju languages) living on both sides of the Chad- Sudan border and in the Nuba Mountains. Separated by distance and speaking different languages, at present ...

across a wide area of

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 ...

and

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

. In Sudan, they are spoken in parts of the regions of

Kordofan Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory di ...

Darfur Darfur ( ; ar, دار فور, Dār Fūr, lit=Realm of the Fur) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju ( ar, دار داجو, Dār Dājū, links=no) while ruled by the Daju, ...

, in Chad they are spoken in Wadai. The Daju languages belong to the

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. Nub ...

subfamily of

Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T ...

.Ethnologue report for Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic, Western, Daju languages
retrieved May 21, 2011

Languages

The Daju languages are sub-classified as follows, following Stevenson (1956). * Eastern Daju: ** Shatt in the Shatt Hills southwest of

Kadugli Kaduqli or Kadugli ( ar, كادوقلي ' Sudanese pronunciation: ) is the capital city of South Kordofan State, Sudan. It is located south of El-Obeid, at the northern edge of the White Nile plain in the Nuba Mountains. It contains Hi ...

. (The name "Shatt" is also applied to other unrelated languages of the area.) ** Subori in the

Nuba Hills The Nuba Mountains ( ar, جبال النوبة), also referred to as the Nuba Hills, is an area located in South Kordofan, Sudan. The area is home to a group of indigenous ethnic groups known collectively as the Nuba peoples. In the Middle Ages ...

* Western Daju: ** Daju Mongo in Dar Daju,

** Sila in

Dar Sila Dar Sila is the name of the wandering sultanate of the Dar Sila Daju, a multi-tribal ethnic group in Chad and Sudan. The number of the people in this group exceeds 50,000. They speak the Sila language, a Nilo-Saharan language. Most members of this ...

Nyala The lowland nyala or simply nyala (''Tragelaphus angasii'') is a spiral-horned antelope native to southern Africa. It is a species of the family Bovidae and genus ''Tragelaphus'', previously placed in genus ''Nyala''. It was first described in ...

around

** Beigo (extinct) in southern

** Njalgulgule in

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 ...

on the

Sopo River The Sopo River is a river in South Sudan's state of Western Bahr el Ghazal. Course The Sopo river rises on the border with the Central African Republic, and flows in a generally northeast direction past the town of Sopo. to join the Boro Rive ...

Proto-Daju has been partially reconstructed by

Robin Thelwall Robin may refer to: Animals * Australasian robins, red-breasted songbirds of the family Petroicidae * Many members of the subfamily Saxicolinae (Old World chats), including: **European robin (''Erithacus rubecula'') ** Bush-robin **Forest r ...

(1981). In his judgement, the Eastern Daju languages separated from the others perhaps as much as 2,000 years ago, while the Western Daju languages were spread more recently, perhaps by the Daju state which dominated

from about 1200 AD until scattered after the death of Kasi Furogé, the Daju king, and replaced by the

Tunjur __NOTOC__ The Tunjur (or Tungur) people are a Sunni Muslim ethnic group living in eastern Chad and western Sudan. In the 21st century, their number has been estimated at 175.000 people. History Based on linguistic and archaeological evidence, th ...

. The principal phonetic difference between the two branches is the reflex of proto-Daju *ɣ, reflected as Western *r and Eastern *x.

Grammar

The typical verb root in Daju is a monosyllable of the form (C)VC(C). The

perfective The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...

takes a prefixed ''k-''; the

imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a gen ...

, a prefixed ''a(n)-''. The verb takes person suffixes, exemplified in Shatt (for the verb "drink" in the imperfective): Suffixes on nouns serve to mark

singulative In linguistics, singulative number and collective number (abbreviated and ) are terms used when the grammatical number for multiple items is the unmarked form of a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item. This is the ...

(''-tic, -təs''),

generic Generic or generics may refer to: In business * Generic term, a common name used for a range or class of similar things not protected by trademark * Generic brand, a brand for a product that does not have an associated brand or trademark, other ...

, and

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

forms. The typical word order is subject–verb–object in most Daju languages, with exceptions such as Sila, and possessed–possessor.

References

* R. C. Stevenson. "A survey of the phonetics and grammatical structure of the Nuba Mountains languages, with particular reference to Otoro, Katcha and Nyimang." ''Afrika und Übersee'' 40, 1956-7. * Thelwall, Robin. 1981. "Lexicostatistical Subgrouping and Reconstruction of the Daju Group" in ed. Thilo C. Schadeberg &

Lionel Bender Marvin Lionel Bender (August 18, 1934 – February 19, 2008) was an American linguist. Life Bender was born August 18, 1934, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He travelled throughout the world, particularly in Northeast Africa, and was an accompli ...

, ''Nilo-Saharan: Proceedings of the First Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Leiden, September 8–10, 1980''. Foris: Dordrecht. * Thelwall, Robin. 1981. ''The Daju Language Group''. Boston, Spa: British Library Document Supply Centre. Doctoral dissertation, Coleraine: New University of Ulster.

External links

Nuba Languages and History
Robin Thelwall
Language Map of Sudan
Huffman, Steve {{Authority control Language families Southern Eastern Sudanic languages

Languages

Grammar

See also

References

External links