Dilling language
| Dilling | |
|---|---|
| Warki | |
| Native to | Sudan |
| Region | Nuba Hills |
| Ethnicity | 92,000 Dilling (2024)[1] |
Native speakers | 13,000 (2022)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dil |
| Glottolog | dill1242 |
| File:Lang Status 60-DE.svg Dilling is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Dilling (also Delen, Warkimbe; autonym: Warki) is a Hill Nubian language spoken in the northwestern Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan. It is spoken by around 12,000 people in the town of Dilling and surrounding hills, including Kudur. Ethnologue reports that Dilling is moribund, with only older adults speaking the language and not using it with their children. All speakers also use Sudanese Arabic. The Dilling call themselves Warki, while the Dilling speakers of Kudur call themselves Kwashe.[1] Another ethnic minority that speak Dilling are the Debri people, an ethnic group of several thousand people from South Kordofan in Sudan
Dialects
Dilling has one dialect – Debri,[citation needed] which is spoken on the mountain Gebel Debri, south of Ghulfan.[2]
Phonology
Dilling has 9 vowels a,e,ẹ,ḙ,i,ọ,ǒ,u and 21 consonants as following (Gebel Delen 1920:3):[full citation needed]
| Explosives
voiceless voiced |
Fricatives
voiceless voiced |
Liquidates | Nasales | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dentales | t d | (s) | l r | n |
| Gutturales | k g | h | ṅ | |
| Gutturopalatales | ñ | |||
| Palatales | t d | š y | ń | |
| Labiales | p b | ƒ w | m |
Nouns
In Dilling there is no difference grammatical gender in nouns verb forms, pronouns and relative terms, to express a gender in a person one adds expression to clarify such as for example korti (man) or ḙli (woman). These are added apposition without a connector. With animals the name classifies gender and species, ‘tẹ’ “female cow” and ‘tere’ “bull”. (Gebel Delen 1920:40-41)[full citation needed] Dilling does not have specific and non specific articles but it uses personal pronouns of the 3rd person singular or plural and is placed in front of the noun ‘tẹ id’ “the (mentioned) man”(Gebel Delen 1920:42).[full citation needed] Exceptions are names and If the noun has an attribute afterwards it is either placed in front, between the noun and attribute or it is multiplied (Gebel Delen 1920:42).[full citation needed]
Pronouns
Personal pronouns are: e->I a->You te/te->He/she/it i->We u->You ti->They Often times one only puts first person pronouns in front of the verb and leaves it out when referring to the 3rd person sg/pl or if they wanted to use it as a noun when they want to stress this part, they would put it in front of the verb. (Gebel Delen 1920:96)[full citation needed]
Numbers
Numbers 1-29 are written in Dilling starting from 30 numbers are either accumulating the numbers or taken from Arabic especially starting from 100(Gebel Delen 1920:90-92).[full citation needed] 1 bēn oder ben 2 óren 3 tọcuṅ (töduṅ) 4 kẹmíńen 5 tišin 6 kwarten 7 kwálān 8 ẹddin 9 wēn 10 búren 11 bure bé kǒ 12 bur óro kǒ 13 bur tẹ kǒ 14 bur kẹn kǒ 15 bur tís kǒ 16 bur kwártu kǒ 17 bur kwalā kǒ 18 bur ẹddu kǒ 19 bur wẹ kǒ 20 tarben 21 tar(be) bé kǒ 22 tar(be) óro kǒ 23 tar tē kǒ 24 tar kẹn kǒ 25 tar(be) tís kǒ 26 tar(be) kwártu kǒ 27 tar kwalā kǒ 28 tar(be) ẹddu kǒ 29 tar(be) wẹ kǒ
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Dilling at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
- ↑ Rilly, Claude; Voogt, Alex de (2012-08-27). The Meroitic Language and Writing System. Cambridge University Press. p. 74. ISBN 9781139560535.
