Some Aspects of Dinka Noun System
investigates, as the name suggests,
aspects of the noun system of the Dinka
language.
Dinka is a monosyllabic and tone
language. It belongs to the Nilotic
family of languages that includes Nuer
and Shilluk. The book examines some
aspects of Dinka phonology. Phonology
is a branch of linguistics which studies
language sound.
The second part of the book handles
the definition of " breathiness" and its
role in the language.
Part three investigates the role of
vowel's length and central vowels.
According to Professor Job Malou,
investigations show that breathiness in
Dinka is distinctive and that there are 78
distinctive vowels.
Linguists such as A. Trucker, Bryan
and Welmers who have studied Western
Nilotic Languages, pointed out the
existence of seven vowel contrasts.
However, Trucker and Bryan (1948),
recognised the complicated nature of
Dinka vowels system. They pointed out
the existence of seven vowel contrasts.
Welmers find Wilson's tentative
analysis of the Dinka vowel system
together with its morphological operating
remarkable.
The review discusses the presence of
both "breathy" and non-breathy" voice in
pronunciation of vowels, diphthongs and
semi-vowels. Tone, vowel system and
syllable are included in the discussion.
Furthermore, compounding, wordformation,
cattle name prefixes and
reduplication are tackled at length in
chapters four and five respectively.
Reduplication is a repetition of all or
some parts of a stem word that mostly
forms abstract nouns.
Investigations reveal that the
Dinka nominal system involves many
complicated rules. For that reason,
the author recommends an in-depth
study of all the Dinka dialects in
order for researchers to draw out clear
morphological rules governing the Dinka
language.
Deng Akol Juach was born in Piom de Awan Village. He received all his education in South
Sudan and Sudan.
In 2014 Deng Akol Juach crowned his academic achievements with an award of a PhD in
Applied Linguistics from the Sudan University of science and technology, Sudan.
Dr Juach, who has been a lecturer for about ten years at the Faculty of Education (English
Department) of the University Upper Nile, Malakal, is currently an Assistant Professor. This is
his first publication.
