Region Uganda, South Sudan Native speakers ca. 320,000 (2002) | Ethnicity Madi ISO 639-3 mhi | |
Language family Nilo-Saharan?
Central Sudanic
Eastern
Moru–Madi
Southern
Ma'di Dialects Moyo
Adjumani (Oyuwi)
Lokai
Ɓurulo
Pandikeri
Okollo
Ogoko | ||
The Ma'di language (pronounced [màɗí]) is found in Uganda and South Sudan. (The apostrophe before the letter d denotes it as an implosive). The Madi people refer to their language as Ma'di ti literally: Ma'di mouth.
Contents
The Ma'di people are found in Magwi County in the Sudan, and in Adjumani and Moyo districts in Uganda. The population is about 390,000 people (90,000 in the Sudan).
Ma'di language is mutuallly intelligible with Olu'bo, Lugbara, Moru, Avokaya, Kaliko and Logo, all of which are part of the Moru-Madi clade.
Sociolinguistics
Most Ma'di people are bilingual. In Uganda, the educated class speak English as the second language. Some also speak Swahili. In South Sudan, the educated Ma'dis speak English and/or Arabic. The South Sudanese Ma'di also speak Juba Arabic, spoken in the South Sudan and not understood in the North. The form of Juba Arabic spoken by the Ma'di is influenced by Nubi/Kinubi spoken in Uganda among Moslems who are mainly descendents of Gordon's troops. Loanwords in Ugandan Ma'di are therefore mainly of English and/or Swahili origin and in Sudanese Ma'di of English and/or Juba Arabic origin.
There is an interesting linguistic interaction between the Ma'di, the Acholi and the Kuku (kuku). Most Ma'dis speak Acholi but hardly any Acholi speak Ma'di. This is possibly because during the first civil war in the Sudan, most Sudanese Ma'di were seuled among the Acholi in Uganda. Possibly for the same reasons, most Kukus speak fluent Ugandan Ma'di. but hardly any Ma'di speaks Kuku. It is still possible even today to find among the Sudanese Ma'di people who can trace their ancestry to the neighbouring tribes – Bari, Kuku, Pajulu. Acholi etc. Hardly any of them can now speak their 'ancestral' languages; they speak Ma'di only and have become fully absorbed into the Ma'di community.
Crazzolara claims (without very credible evidence) that there are linguistic traces of Ma'di found in Nilotic languages like Dinka (especially Atwot), Nuer and Lwo (Acholi, Alur and Lango) and among the Bantu (Nyoro and Ganda). There are also some claims which maintain that there are Acholi speaking clans in Pakele in Adjumani (in Adjumani District), whose Ma'di accent is said to be completely different from that of the other Ma'di in the area. In Adjumani itself, the Oyuwi (ojuwt) clans are said to speak three languages: Ma'di, Kakwa and Lugbara.
Phonology
Ma'di is a tonal language, which means that meanings of words depend on the pitch. There are three tone levels (high, mid and low). The language has a number of implosives: /ɓ/ ('b), /ɗ/ ('d), /ʄ/ ('j), /ɠɓ/ ('gb). There are a number of secondarily (/kʷ/) and doubly articulated sounds (/ɡb/, /kp/) in addition to the singularly articulated sounds (/f/, /v/). The language also has glottal stops (/ʔ/) which can be found word medially and initially. There are ten vowels in the language, divided into +ATR /a, e, i, o, u/ and -ATR /a, ɛ, ɪ, ɔ, ʊ/.
Orthography
Currently there are two systems used in reading Madi. The old and the new system. The old system ignores tones completely hence making reading more difficult. The old system also uses only five vowels (a, e, i, o, u). The new systems employs ten vowel (see the tables to the left). It also identifies four tones: high (close), mid, low and falling.
Examples:
The examples below show how heavy and light vowels compare: