Phonology
A phonological analysis has yet to be done. The following consonants may therefore not all be distinct. Voicing is not distinctive at the end of a stem, regardless of whether it's at the end of a word or utterance. Consonant clusters due to suffixes tend to be simplified. Dental consonants are written ''th dh nh'' in the practical orthography. is written ''ɣ''. Vowels may be long or short, modal or breathy voiced. The latter are written with an underscore in the practical orthography, except for ''u'' and ''ä'' , where there is no modal-voiced vowel to contrast. is rare. (Curly brackets indicate the set of ''æ'' vowels.) Final is always breathy voiced. There does not appear to be a distinction between short ''a'' and ''ə''. Breathy is pronounced or . Faust & Grossman did not find strong evidence for lexical or grammatical tone, with a few exceptions such as the 1sg suffix and the plural suffix , which have a rising tone.Dialects
''Ethnologue'' lists the following dialects of Nuer. *Eastern Jikany (Jekaing, Jikain) *Abigar *Western Jikany *Cien *Lou *Nyuong *Thiang *Bul Chol *Gawaar *Laak *Jagei (geai koay) *Leek *Dok *HaakNuer communities
There are different dialects spoken by Nuer groups living in various locations in South Sudan. Some of the Nuer people live in Western Ethiopia. They are called Jikany Nuer. The Nuer of the Upper Nile State are also called Jikany, and those in Jonglei State Lou, Gawaar, Thiang and Laak. There are also seven counties inhabited by the other groups of Nuer in the western part of the Upper Nile Province currently known as Unity State Bentiu. These counties include: * Guit County: Inhabited by Jikany kuec cieng community in the eastern Bentiu * Mayom County: Inhabited by Bul Chol Geah community in the western part of the state * Rubkona County: Inhabited by Leek community in the northern Bentiu * Koch County: Inhabited by Jagei community in the central Bentiu * Mayiandit County: Inhabited by Haak Bakol-kuoth community in the far south-western part of the state, they are also known as Gatbakol-kuoth. * Leer County: Inhabited by Dok community in the southern part of the state. * Payinjiar county:Inhabited by Nyuong community in the far southern part of the state. Among the 120,000 people at the United Nations Protection of Civilians Site Bentiu, Nuer is the preferred language for radio and news. Nuer-speaking Sudanese refugees have formed a significant community in Omaha, Nebraska, United States.Sample phrases
Nuer'': '' ''Naath dial diethɛ kɛ a lɔr kä päärkɛ kɛ ciaŋ malä a mäni cuŋkiɛn. Tekɛ kɛ ca̱r kɛnɛ nhök ti de lät kɛ raan kɛ dämaan a gɔa''. English:'' '' “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”. ''(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)''Writing system
The alphabet of Nuer uses 39 distinct letters, shown below in uppercase (majuscule) andHistory
The writing system was adopted in 1928 with minor changes being added over the history of the language. Both the Dinka and the Nuer agreed that their languages were so different that they could never share written languages, but they did come up with several common principles. * finalLanguage families
The Nuer language belongs to the following language families, going from smallest to largest. * Dinka-Nuer languages * Western Nilotic languages * Nilotic languages * Kir–Abbaian languages * Eastern Sudanic languages *See also
* Dinka language *References
External links