Spelling bee in Dinka
Aren't you glad you aren't taking part?
Dinka is a Nilotic language with about two million speakers, mostly in southern Sudan. It's a tone language, and, in addition to tonemes and two varieties of breathing--all of which intersect--it has, of course, vowel length. In phonemic transcription, leaving out suprasegmentals, we have, e.g., the following, all valid, all different (contrasting):
/lel/
/leel
/leeel/.
(For more, see the current number of Language, where I learned this.)
Dinka is a Nilotic language with about two million speakers, mostly in southern Sudan. It's a tone language, and, in addition to tonemes and two varieties of breathing--all of which intersect--it has, of course, vowel length. In phonemic transcription, leaving out suprasegmentals, we have, e.g., the following, all valid, all different (contrasting):
/lel/
/leel
/leeel/.
(For more, see the current number of Language, where I learned this.)
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