Nyangatom (also Inyangatom, Donyiro, Dongiro, Idongiro) is 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 ...
language spoken in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
by the
Nyangatom people
The Nyangatom also known as Donyiro and pejoratively as Bumé are Nilotic agro-pastoralists inhabiting the border of southwestern Ethiopia, southeastern South Sudan, and the Ilemi Triangle. They speak the Nyangatom language.
Overview
The Nyan ...
. It is an oral language only, having no working orthography at present. Related languages include
Toposa and
Turkana, both of which have a level of mutual intelligibility; Blench (2012) counts it as a dialect of Turkana.
Phonology
Consonants
Vowels
*Vowel length is contrastive in Nyangatom, as in ''dʒík'' 'completely' vs. ''dʒíík'' 'always'
*Before a pause, short vowels carrying a single, simple tone are devoiced.
Bibliography
*Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. 2007. "Ñaŋatom language" in Siegbert Uhlig (ed.) ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Vol 3''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 1131–1132.
References
{{Eastern Sudanic languages
Languages of Ethiopia
Eastern Nilotic languages