Toposa language

Toposa
Toposa–Jiye
Native to	South Sudan
Region	Eastern Africa
Ethnicity	Toposa
Speakers	320,000 (2017) [1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic? Southern Eastern? Nilotic Eastern Ateker–Lotuko–Maa Ateker Turkanic Toposa
Writing system	none
Language codes
ISO 639-3	toq
Glottolog	topo1242
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Toposa (also Akara, Kare, Kumi, Taposa, Topotha) is a Nilo-Saharan language (Eastern Sudanic, Nilotic) spoken in South Sudan by the Toposa people. Mutually intelligible language varieties include Jiye of South Sudan, Nyangatom of Ethiopia, Karimojong, Jie ^[2] and Dodos of Uganda and Turkana of Kenya. Teso (spoken in both Kenya and Uganda) is lexically more distant.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	Voiceless	p	t		k
	Voiced	b	d		ɡ
Affricate	Voiceless			t͡ʃ
	Voiced			d͡ʒ
Fricative			s
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Flap			r
Approximant		w	l	j

• All consonants (except, of course, for /w/ and /j/) can occur in labialized and palatalized forms.

Vowels

+ATR

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open

-ATR

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

• Toposa, like many Nilotic languages, has vowel harmony with two sets of vowels: a set with the tongue root advanced (+ATR) and a −ATR set. +ATR is marked. The vowel /a/ is neutral with respect to vowel harmony. ^[3]
• All nine vowels also occur as devoiced, contrasting with their voiced counterparts. These voiceless vowels occur primarily in prepause contexts. Some Toposa morphemes consist only of a high voiceless vowel; the functional load appears to be much greater with the high vowels than with the lower. ^[4]
• Toposa has tone, which is grammatical rather than lexical. Tone is used to mark case in nouns and tense in verbs.

Bibliography

• Schröder, Martin C. (1989). "The Toposa Verb in Narrative Structure". Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere. 20: 129–142.
• Schröder, Martin C.; Helga Schröder (1987a). "Voiceless Vowels in Toposa". Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere. 12: 17–26.
• Schröder, Martin C.; Helga Schröder (1987b). "Vowel Harmony in Toposa". Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere. 12: 27–36.

References

1. Toposa at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Jiye and Jie are the same name, but refer to different varieties
3. Schröder & Schröder 1987b, p. 27
4. Schröder & Schröder 1987a, p. 17