Maʼdi language

Maʼdi (pronounced [màɗɨ́]) is a Central Sudanic language spoken in Uganda and South Sudan. It is one of the Moru–Madi languages. The Madi people refer to their language as Maʼdi ti, literally "Maʼdi mouth".

The Maʼdi people are found in Magwi County in South Sudan, and in Adjumani and Moyo districts in Uganda. Their population is about 390,000 (90,000 in South Sudan).

Maʼdi is mutually intelligible with Oluʼbo, Lugbara, Moru, Avokaya, Kaliko and Logo, all of which are also Moru–Madi languages.

Most Maʼdi people are bilingual. In Uganda, the educated class speaks English as the second language and some also speak Swahili. In South Sudan, the educated Maʼdis speak English and/or Arabic. The South Sudanese Maʼdi also speak Juba Arabic, spoken in South Sudan and not understood in the North. The form of Juba Arabic spoken by the Maʼdi is influenced by the Nubi language spoken in Uganda among Muslims who are mainly descendants of Gordonʼs troops. Loanwords in Ugandan Maʼdi are therefore mainly of English and/or Swahili origin and in Sudanese Maʼdi of English and/or Juba Arabic origin.

There is an interesting linguistic interaction between the Maʼdi, the Acholi and the Kuku. Most Maʼdis speak Acholi but hardly any Acholi speak Maʼdi. This is possibly because during the first civil war in the Sudan, most Sudanese Maʼdi were settled among the Acholi in Uganda. Possibly for the same reasons, most Kukus speak fluent Ugandan Maʼdi, but hardly any Maʼdi speak Kuku. It is still possible even today to find among the Sudanese Maʼdi 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 Maʼdi only and have become fully absorbed into the Maʼdi community.

Crazzolara claims that there are linguistic traces of Maʼdi found in Nilotic languages like Dinka (especially Atwot), Nuer and Lwo (Acholi, Alur and Lango) and among the Bantu (Nyoro and Ganda).^{[citation needed]} There are also some claims which maintain that there are Acholi speaking clans in Pakele in Adjumani (in Adjumani District), whose Maʼdi accent is said to be completely different from that of the other Maʼdi in the area. In Adjumani itself, the Oyuwi (ojuwt) clans are said to speak three languages: Maʼdi, Kakwa and Lugbara.

Maʼdi 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/ (ʼb), /ɗ/ (ʼd), /ʄ/ (ʼj), /ɠɓ/ (ʼgb). 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, conveniently though inaccurately transcribed as +ATR /a, e, i, o, u/ and −ATR /ʌ, ɛ, ɨ, ɔ, ʊ/. This convention was chosen for "visual clarity" and only approximates the phonetic values.