Yulu (also spelled Youlou, pronounced ) is a
Central Sudanic
Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and ...
language spoken by the
Yulu people Yulu is an ethnic group in Central African Republic,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and South Sudan
South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked count ...
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 ...
and the
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...
(CAR). It has an estimated 7,000–13,000 speakers.
[Frawley, W. (2003). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics: AAVE-Esperanto. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press.]
Yulu is classified as a Central Sudanic language of the
Bongo–Bagirmi branch. It has been written using
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
(with adjustments for sounds with no corresponding letters) since the
Rejaf Language Conference in 1928 attempted to standardize a writing system for the region's indigenous languages.
Many Sudanese people prefer to speak
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, 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 ...
; however, there is a new movement to promote the instruction of local languages in school. This is particularly because a large proportion of speakers are not literate in Yulu.
[(19 November 2015). W. Bahr el-Ghazal pushes for local languages in schools. Sudan Tribune.] Between 30 and 50 languages are spoken in South Sudan; Yulu was not recommended by the Rejaf Language Conference to be taught in schools, possibly contributing to its endangerment.
Yulu has four tones in speech: high, mid, low and extra-low. One of its defining features is the use of
compound verbs. Compound verbs are a cluster of between two and four related verbs that create meaning when combined.
[Boyeldieu, P. (2007). Compound Verbs and Modalities of Process in Yulu (Central Sudanic). In Advances in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics. Proceedings of the 8th Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, University of Hamburg, August 22–25, 2001 (pp. p-25). Rüdiger Köppe.] Some of the most comprehensive linguistic information on Yulu was written by Stefano Santandrea, a
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
priest from
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
who lived in
Bahr al-Ghazal for several decades.
Classification
Yulu has been geographically classified differently by different experts, some of whom refer to it as "Central Sudanic,"
some as "Eastern Sudanic," and still others as "West-Central Sudanic." Boyeldieu
and
Greenberg both place it in the "
Bongo-Bagirmi" group of languages, while Tucker and Bryan refer to it as a "non-Bantu language of north-eastern Africa." Yulu is similar to Binga, the two being mutually intelligible, and there is debate as to whether they are separate languages or dialects of one. The Rejaf Language Conference classified the two as one language, and Gabjanda agrees that it makes more sense to see them as dialects of the same language.
[Santandrea, S. (1964). A tribal history of the Western Bahr el Ghazal. In , Museum Combonianum 17 Nigrizia.] Santandrea, meanwhile, says that Yulu is the standard form, as opposed to a dialect. The vocabulary between the two languages does differ significantly. Yulu also shares certain linguistic features with Gula and Modo,
and both cultural and linguistic features with Kara and Binga.
History
The Yulu population itself only numbers some thousands, and subsists mostly on agriculture, hunting, and honey production. They are not assumed to be indigenous to the region they currently inhabit, and the mythology surrounding the Yulu's origin tells that they migrated northwest through Fur from the
Blue Nile
The Blue Nile (; ) is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the water ...
to reach the area of Sudan where they currently reside. Later, some Yulu were pushed farther west into the CAR.
Many Yulu speakers prefer speaking Arabic,
the official language of Sudan and one which was embraced by the academic community. In 1960, Arabic was required in education past grade 3 and through university. The
Navaisha Peace agreement added more flexibility, though, by allowing small provinces to adopt local languages as official ones.
Teachers and academics in the Bahr el-Ghazal region of Sudan have pushed for the more widespread use of local languages in schools, specifically pointing out that many, including Yulu, survived in books published by
Catholic missionaries
Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, p ...
, which should be taken advantage of.
Geographic distribution
Yulu is not the dominant indigenous language in the region within which it is spoken, however, it is used over a wide geographic area, consequently making it difficult to know how many speakers there are. The estimated 7,000 speakers are divided between roughly 4,000 in the CAR and 3,000 in Sudan. Within the CAR, the language is spoken in the
Ouadda-Djalél and
Ouadda
Ouadda is a town located in the Central African Republic prefecture of Haute-Kotto.
History
On 10 December 2012, the rebels from Séléka seized Ouadda, as well as weapons left by fleeing soldiers. In 2021 Ouadda was under control of ex-Sélék ...
sub-prefectures,
while in Sudan it is primarily spoken in the southwestern area of
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, ...
and Western
Bahr el-Ghazal.
A 2013 survey reported that ethnic Yulu reside in Dem Jalab
Boma, Ringi
Payam,
Raja County
Raja County is an administrative area in Lol State, 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 Ethiopi ...
,
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 ...
.
Phonology
Consonants
The following table provides an overview of the
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
phoneme
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 o ...
s.
Vowels
The following table provides an overview of the vowel phonemes.
Vowel realizations
Four of the vowel phonemes allophonically assume different vowel lengths depending on whether they have a high tone or a falling tone. Two of them also alternate vowel quality. /a/ does not face this alternation.
Grammar
One of Yulu's distinctive features is its system of four tones, classified as high, mid, low, and extra-low. It also boasts a relatively distinctive phenomenon of clustering verbs, anywhere between two and four at a time. These clusters work together to describe one process as if it were a single
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
, and are not always distinguishable from one another within the cluster, in part because when one verb in a cluster ends in a
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
and the next verb begins with one, the two sounds overlap. These clusters are common in texts, and occur roughly 75% as often as single verbs. Verbs in Yulu always have a subject marker as well as a
verb stem
In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem is ...
, and sometimes contain a verbal dependency or verbal plural marker.
Writing system
The Rejaf Language Conference recommended adopting the Latin script, with adjustments for the sounds that do not exist within it, as Yulu's writing system.
References
Bibliography
*
{{Central Sudanic languages
Bongo–Bagirmi languages
Vulnerable languages