Toposa language

Toposa
Toposa–Jiye
Native to	South Sudan
Region	Eastern Africa
Ethnicity	Toposa
Speakers	320,000 (2017)
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic? Kir–Abbaian? Nilotic Eastern Nilotic Ateker–Lotuko–Maa Ateker Turkanic Toposa
Writing system	none
Language codes
ISO 639-3	toq
Glottolog	topo1242

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 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.
• 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.
• 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.