Toposa

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A language of South Sudan

ISO 639-3
toq
Alternate Names
Akara, Kare, Kumi, Taposa, Topotha
Population

100,000 (2000 M. Schroeder). Most are monolingual.

Location

East Equatoria State, Kapoeta North, Kapoeta South and Kapoeta East counties; along Singaita and Lokalyen rivers.

Language Maps
Language Status

5 (Developing).

Classification
Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic, Nilotic, Eastern, Lotuxo-Teso, Teso-Turkana, Turkana
Dialects

Eastern Toposa, Jiye, Western Toposa. Inherently intelligible with Nyangatom [nnj], Karamojong [kdj], and Turkana [tuv], but each has strong ethnic attitudes. Limited intelligibility of Teso [teo].

Typology

VSO (morphologically ergative); vowel harmony; questions: yes and no sentence final, content questions sentence initial and final; grammatical tone (tense, case)

Language Use

Vigorous. All domains. All ages. Positive attitudes.

Language Development
Literacy rate in L1: Below 5%. Perhaps 2,000 can read. Taught in primary schools. Dictionary. Bible portions: 2002–2006.
Writing
Latin script.