The Dinka language
Thuɔŋjäŋ, the language of the Jiëŋ (Dinka), is a Western Nilotic language spoken in Southern Sudan. Other Western Nilotic languages include: Luo, Nuer, Shilluk, Lango, Acholi and Alur. Nuer is the closest related language to Dinka (Thuɔŋjäŋ).
The major Dinka dialects are: Agar, Bor, Padaŋ and Rek. The Ethnologue identifies five major Dinka dialects: Northeastern Dinka (Padaŋ), Northwestern Dinka, South Central Dinka (Agar), Southeastern Dinka (Bor), and Southwestern Dinka (Rek).
| Northeastern | Northwestern | South Central | Southeastern | Southwestern | |
| Northeastern | 92% | 86% | 88% | 88% | |
| Northwestern | 92% | 84% | 88% | 88% | |
| South Central | 86% | 84% | 90% | 89% | |
| Southeastern | 88% | 88% | 90% | 90% | |
| Southwestern | 88% | 88% | 89% | 90% |
The dialects are mutually intelligible, with some lexical variation between dialects. Most linguistic studies have concentrated on one dialect.
Dinka culture and society was based on orality rather than the written word. Early attempts to utilise the Arabic and Latin scripts occured during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Christian missionaries were instrumental in the development of written Dinka.
The current orthography for Dinka is based on the Latin script. It is derived from the alphabet developed for the Southern Sudanese Languages at the Rejaf language conference in 1928.
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