1. Family: Nilo-Saharan
  2. Subfamily: Eastern Sudanic
  3. Genus: Nilotic

Dinka

WALS coordinates: 8° 30′ N, 28° E

spoken in Sudan

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
    Routledge:
    • Jieng (Dinka)
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone Complex tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants No fricatives
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural stem change
      Definite Articles Definite affix
      Position of Case Affixes Case stem change
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase No dominant order
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative suffix
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
      Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun Other
      Simple Clauses
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Mixed
      Negative Morphemes Negative auxiliary verb
      Polar Questions Absence of declarative morphemes
      Predicative Possession 'Have'
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Lexicon
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha