Lopit language

The Lopit language is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken by around 117,000 people in Eastern Equatoria State, South Sudan. Lopit is part of the Lotuko-Teso subfamily and is related to Lotuko, Turkana and Maasai. Lopit is a VSO language and has a complex tonal system.

The Lopit language has six different dialects: Ngabori, spoken by the Ngaboli sub-community; Dorik, spoken by the Dorik sub-community; Ngotira, spoken by the Ngotira sub-community; Lomiaha, spoken by the Lomiaha sub-community; Lohutok, spoken by the Lohutok sub-community, and Lolongo, spoken by the Lolongo sub-community. Some small sub-communities or villages (for instance Loming, Ahado, Oriaju, Hidonge and Atarangi) also speak Lotuko due to their proximity to the neighboring Lotuko communities. The dialects have similar segmental phonologies with minor vowel and consonant shifts, and also some tonal variations. Lopit speakers generally group the dialects into Northern Lopit and Southern Lopit.