Shilluk language


Shilluk is a Luo language spoken by the Shilluk people of South Sudan and Sudan. It is closely related to other Luo and Nilotic peoples' languages. The term Shilluk is a pronunciation of Arabic origin.

Phonology

Vowels

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

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:
Tone descriptionDiacriticTone bars
LevelLowcv̀c ꜖
LevelMidcv̄c ꜔
LevelHighcv́c ꜒
ContouredRisingcv̌c ꜖꜔
ContouredFallingcv̂c ꜔꜖
ContouredHigh Fallingcv̂́c ꜒꜖
ContouredLate Fallingcv́c̀ ꜒꜒꜖

Morphology

Syllable structure

Uninflected native stem syllables are overwhelmingly monosyllabic. With few exceptions, these monosyllabic stems typically consist of an onset, a vowel, and a coda. Their structure is as follows:
C V C
The monosyllabic stems give rise to polysyllabic words through processes of derivation or inflection. For verbs and nouns alike, the most common prefixes are /a- ʊ-/, and the most common suffixes are /-Cɪ -ɪ -a /.

Orthography

A Latin alphabet was developed for Shilluk by Christian missionaries in the early 20th century. There are 29 characters in Shilluk orthography; 10 vowels and 19 consonants.
aáàäaabcddhdhheéèëeeg-------
íìïiijklmngnggnhnhhnynyyo
óöøooprtthuúùuuvwy

Sample text