Shilluk (natively ''Dhøg Cøllø'' or ''d̪ɔ́cɔ̀llɔ̀'') is a language spoken by the

Shilluk people The Shilluk ( Shilluk: ''Chollo'') are a major Luo Nilotic ethnic group of Southern Sudan, living on both banks of the river Nile, in the vicinity of the city of Malakal. Before the Second Sudanese Civil War the Shilluk also lived in a number ...

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 ...

and Sudan. It is closely related to other

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. ...

. The term Shilluk is a pronunciation of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

origin.

Phonology

Vowels

Each of these vowels also exists in a long form and an overlong form which are

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

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 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

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

alphabet was developed for Shilluk by

Christian mission A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as ...

aries in the early 20th century. There are 29 characters in Shilluk orthography; 10 vowels and 19 consonants.

Syllable structure

Uninflected native stem syllables 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 Derivation may refer to: Language * Morphological derivation, a word-formation process * Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars Law * Derivative work, in copyright law * Derivation proceeding, a proc ...

inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...

. 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 Pertensive marking is to head-marking languages what possessive marking is to dependent-marking languages. For example, English, a dependent-marking language has ''a person's rodent'', where the head is ''rodent'' and the possessive marking is ...

and construct-state are both inflections that mark the head, 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 enabl ...

. 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").

Number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

is marked, but no predictable system has been identified. Instead, there are over 140 different patterns of number marking on nouns.

Numerals A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English) * Numerical d ...

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