Vowel length in western nilotic languages

Abstract

The Western Nilotic languages exhibit considerable variation as to their number of vowel phonemes, this number ranging from 15 in Dholuo to at least 59 in Dinka, while Pari has 24 vowel phonemes. Most of the variation is due to differences with respect to vowel length. Thus, while Dholuo has no length contrast, Pari has a binary contrast, and Dinka has a ternary contrast. It is demonstrated that the binary length contrast in Pari is relatively old, that this contrast has been neutralized in Dholuo, and that the ternary length contrast in Dinka has resulted from compensatory lengthening.

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