Nilotic languages
Small language family of East Africa
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Etymology
The word Nilotic means of or relating to the Nile River or to the Nile region of Africa. The Nile River runs from Rwanda through various countries down to Egypt.
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Demographics
Nilotic peoples, who are the native speakers of the languages, originally migrated from the Gezira area in Sudan. Nilotic language speakers live in parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Subdivisions
According to linguist Joseph Greenberg, the language family is divided into three subgroups:
- Eastern Nilotic languages such as Turkana and Maasai
- Southern Nilotic languages such as Kalenjin and Datooga
- Western Nilotic languages such as Luo, Nuer and Dinka
These Nilotic languages' groupings are geographical classifications rather than mutual intelligibility. For instance, the Dinka is a different language from the Luo, which is also different from Nuer etc. Some words may sound similar due to shared location although these are distinct ethnic groups, with distinct speeches. Dinka and Nuer languages are not mutually intelligible but they share a common vocabulary since both languages are related Western Nilotic languages.
Before Greenberg's reclassification, Nilotic was used to refer to Western Nilotic alone, with the other two being grouped as related "Nilo-Hamitic" languages.
Blench (2012) treats the Burun languages as a fourth subgroup of Nilotic. In previous classifications, the languages were included within the Luo languages. Starostin (2015) treats the Mabaan-Burun languages as "West Nilotic" but outside the Luo level.
Reconstruction
Over 200 Proto-Nilotic lexical roots have been reconstructed by Dimmendaal (1988). Dimmendaal reconstructs the Proto-Nilotic consonants as follows:
Numerals
Comparison of numerals in individual languages: