LOTUKO DIALECTS

Abstract

THE short vocabularies III to VIII were collected by me for a specific purpose which should first be explained. They are so short as to have little linguistic value, but there was no time to do more in the course of a rapid tour of the peoples concerned. This accounts for the words selected. They were chosen as the easiest to comprehend through an unfamiliar medium. That is why, for example, "today" was omitted though both "yesterday" and "tomorrow" were included, as experience has shown that "today" may often be mistaken for "now" or "immediately" and vice versa in the first attempts at securing a new vocabulary. For vocabularies III, IV, V, and VI, Lotuko was used as the medium of interpretation and a Lotuko-speaking interpreter was employed, whom I was able to check by a slight knowledge of Lotuko and particularly of the Lango' dialect of Lotuko. Vocabularies VII and VIII were obtained directly through the medium of Didinga, which is understood by a large number of the members of these two tribes. Vocabularies I and II have been included for the purpose of comparison, the former being extracted from Lord Rag-lan's paper "The Lotuko Language."2 My purpose in collecting these vocabularies was to find some linguistic clue to the relationships of the various tribes, which would support or disprove certain theories I had formed on cultural grounds. This area was formerly the homeland of the Shilluk-speaking peoples, and from it the different tribes of the Nilotic family moved north and south after the dispersal in the fifteenth century. Ever since then different cultures have been in conflict here, and the mountains have preserved broken remnants of tribes isolated by the inundation of alien peoples into the more accessible plains. I do not here wish to enter into the larger question of the relation be-1 Lango (sing. Lalangoni)-a Nilo-Hamitic tribe living round Ikoto, one of whose branches, the Lorwama, extends to Madial and Madi Opei and has to some extent intermarried with the Acholi. Their culture shows considerable differences from Lotuko, but their language (if ever very different from Lotuko) has now been largely assimilated to that of the larger tribe. They claim that Lango is their tribal name, but they have no connection whatever with the Lango of the Uganda Protectorate, who are a Nilotic tribe. This term "Lango" is difficult to explain. It is claimed also by the Nilotic Lango and (possibly with more justice) by their Nilo-Hamitic neighbors, the Akum. It is also applied, however, as a nickname to various other tribes, but always in an eastward direction. Thus the Alur on the west of the Nile speak of the Acholi as Lango; the Acholi (who speak of the Nilotic Lango by the name Miro) apply the term Lango to the tribes living to their east: viz. the Ajie, Karamojong, Dodoth, and Didinga. 2 Bul. School of Oriental Studies, Vol. II, pt. II: 267. 601