The Dinka Sentence

The sentence structure relies mostly on the noun, which we are aware that forms the subject of the sentence. Noun represents a person, things, a place, or something about which something is said.

In countless languages spoken around the world, noun takes various positions. There are languages that have a fixed rule that guides a change that takes place when constructing a sentence. For example, in English, noun keeps the same change in most cases. English native speakers, for instance, are pretty accustomed with an es or s when added at the end of a sentence, it means the number of noun is increased, and thereby noun becomes a plural. In English most changes occur at the very end of a noun i.e. Child-children, woman-women, house-houses, word-words and etc.

Noun, in Dinka language, maintains changes by either elongation or shortening of the vowels length. In Dinka language, vowels determine the changes in sentence structure.

To illustrate this, let’s take:

Singular ---------------------- Plural

meth child ------------------- mïth children

weŋ cow --------------------- wεεŋ cows

moc man -------------------- röör men

athöör book ----------------- athör books

thööc chair ------------------- thöc chairs

raan person ------------------kɔc persons

tɔŋ spear --------------------- tɔɔŋ spears

kuur stone -------------------- kur stones

There is no fixed rule that governs the use of specific forms to classify a noun as we already mentioned. As we shall see, an adjective has to agree with a noun in forming a sentence.

Let us take some nouns from the preceding list and use them with the following adjectives:

dït------------------------------ big

koor---------------------------- small

pieth---------------------------- good

rac------------------------------- bad

ciek------------------------------ short

bäär------------------------------ tall

And some numbers:

tök-------------------------------- one

rou--------------------------------two

diäk------------------------------- three

ŋuan------------------------------- four

dhiëc------------------------------- five

To start building a sentence we will begin by writing only what we have learned so far. To say two large chairs, we begin by reversing the order: thöc dït kerou, literally “chairs large two.”

A number almost always comes at the very end in Dinka language.

To say, a small thing, we would write kë koor, which is exactly equivalent to thing small. One may be curious about the definite article “a” place in the above sentence, but it is true that the lack of either definite or indefinite article in Dinka language does not affect the expression of a complete sentence.

The same way we would write:

raan pieth-----------------------------------  a nice person

kɔc keerou----------------------------------two persons

raan tök--------------------------------------  one person

nyan bäär------------------------------------- a tall girl

Using adjective (especially numbers) with noun, there is a different between the “one” and the rest of numbers. That is when a noun is modified by any numeral with only the exception of one; noun must always be followed by a particle kee or kaa.

For instance:

kɔc kee rou -------------------------- two persons

nyïïr kee dhetem -------------------- six girls

mïth kee dhoŋuan-------------------- nine children

buɔt kee rou --------------------------two hundreds

keek kee diäk -------------------------- three of them

buɔ̈t kee rou------------------------- two bushes

Let’s take another step and add some verbs to form some simple sentences. Let us take the following verbs:

bɔ/bär/bäk/bɛn ---------------------- to come

lɔ/lɔr -----------------------------------to go

cath ------------------------------------- to walk

And let us take the following forms of tense, which are:

abï/bï --------------------------------- future tense

acï/cï --------------------------------- past tense

a/aa ----------------------------------- present tense

ye/aye/aya -------------------------- habitual

One should not confuse acï/cï with acïï/cïï the last one actually means impossibility and one must elongate the sound of the last one. Here is the contrast:

Acï rɔt lëu ba lɔ baai. ----------------- It was possible for me to go home.

Acïï rɔt lëu ba lɔ baai. ---------------- It is impossible for me to go home.

Acï rɔt lëu bak lɔ baai. --------------- It was possible for you to go home.

Acïï rɔt lëu bak lɔ baai. ---------------It is impossible for you to go home.

Acï rɔt lëu buk lɔ baai. --------------- It was possible for us to go home.

Acïï rɔt lëu buk lɔ baai. ---------------It is impossible for us to go home.

Ɣɛn cï lɔ baai wänaköl. ---------------I went home yesterday.

Ɣɛn cïï lɔ baai miäkaköl. -------------I am not going home tomorrow.

To say, he will go, we write yen abï lɔ.

To say, he has gone, yen acï lɔ.

To say, he is going, yen a-lɔ.

Note: there is no distinction among the personal pronoun “he, she, or it, they are all translated into one word in Dinka that is “yen.” Therefore yen is everything here.

To say, he will come, we write yen abï bɛn.

The following are more examples:

Yen acï bɛn. -----------------He has come.

Yïn bär tɛn. ----------------- You come here.

Yen a bɔ baai. -------------- He is coming home.

Keek aa bï lɔ. --------------- They will go.

Keek aa cï lɔ. ----------------They have gone.

Keek aa lɔ. -------------------They are going.

Keek aa bï bɛn. -------------They will come.

Keek aa cï bɛn. -------------They have come.

Keek aa bɔ. ------------------They are coming.

Deŋ a bɔ. -------------------- Deng is coming.

Deŋ abï cath. --------------- Deng will walk.

Deŋ acï cath. ----------------Deng walked.

Deŋ a cath. ------------------ Deng is walking.

Ɣɛn abɔ/bɔ baai ëmɛnë. -- I am coming home now.

Ɣɛn acï/cï lɔ baai. ---------- I went home.

Ɣɛn acïï/cïï lɔ baai. ---------I am not going home.

Ɣɛn abï/bï bɛn baai.--------I will come home.

Note: It is appropriate to use bɔ/bï for first and second person pronouns i.e Ɣɛn and Yïn, and abɔ/abï for third person pronouns i.e yen.

The Dinka letter “a” indicates whereas the sentence is in present tense. When a sentence is in plural form, the plural form of a, which is aa can be used as shown above in keek aa lɔ.

As we keep building our vocabularies, we shall soon realize that the rules we have mentioned early are going to be used slightly different. For example, we noticed early that to translate an English sentence into Dinka language, the reverse of the original English sentence is what a person can get. Nevertheless it is not going to conceal the fact that direct translation is also possible.

Let’s take some English sentences and translate them into Dinka to illustrate what we are talking about. Suppose we want to know how to write “God is light” in Dinka language. If we want to translate this we must translate word-by word: The word for God in Dinka is Nhialic and the English’s is can be translated as ee into Dinka, and finally light is translated as ɣεεr. Therefore our complete sentence would be Nhialic ee ɣεεr.

Both a and ee are used for the verb is, but how are they different? To answer this, we need to study the following sentences:

Deŋ a bɔ baai miäk. ------------------ Deng is coming tomorrow.

Deŋ a lɔ baai. -------------------------- Deng is going home.

Deŋ a jam. ------------------------------ Deng is speaking.

Deŋ a tɔ . -------------------------------- Deng is present.

Kënë ee Deŋ. -------------------------- This is Deng.

Deŋ ee raan pieth. -------------------- Deng is a nice person.

Abuk a pieth arëët.--------------------- Abuk is so beautiful.

Kënë ee athöördië. --------------------This is my book.

It appears that both a and ee are interchangeable, but one should use ee for singular items and state verbs, but a is used for verbs in action. The plural form of both a and ee is aa.