Toposa

Print

Primary tabs

A language of South Sudan

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

312,000 in South Sudan (2017). Most are monolingual. Total users in all countries: 315,000.

Location

Eastern Equatoria state: Kapoeta North, Kapoeta South and Kapoeta East counties; along Singaita and Lokalyen rivers.

Language Maps
Language Status

5 (Developing).

Classification
Nilo-Saharan, Satellite-Core, Core, Eastern Sudanic, Southern (n languages), Nilotic, Eastern, Lotuxo-Teso, Teso-Turkana, Turkana
Dialects

Eastern Toposa, Western Toposa, Jiye. Inherently intelligible with Nyangatom [nnj], Karamojong [kdj], and Turkana [tuv], but each has strong ethnic attitudes. Limited intelligibility of Ateso [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. Used by all. Positive attitudes. Used as L2 by Tennet [tex].

Language Development

Literacy rate in L1: Below 5%. Perhaps 2,000 can read. Taught as subject in some primary schools through grade 3. The Ministry of Education, supported by donors, has started a pilot project to develop materials for teaching Toposa as a subject and as language of instruction up to grade 3 in some schools. Literature. Dictionary. Bible portions: 2002–2006.

Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Toposa
Writing

Latin script [Latn].

Also spoken in:

Expand All
Collapse All