Beli language (South Sudan)

’Bëlï, or Jur ’Bëlï, is a Central Sudanic language spoken by the Beli and Sopi people of South Sudan.

’Bëlï
Jur ’Bëlï
Native to	South Sudan
Native speakers	65,000 (2009)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Central Sudanic Bongo–Bagirmi Bongo–Baka ’Bëlï
Language codes
ISO 639-3	blm
Glottolog	beli1257
ELP	Beli (Sudan)[2]

Phonology

Consonants

Stirtz (2014) lists the following consonant phonemes:[3]

	Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Voiceless plosives	p	t̪	c	k	k͡p
Voiced plosives	b	d̪	ɟ	g	g͡b
Implosives	ɓ	ɗ	ʄ
Prenasalised plosives	^mb	^nd̪	^nɟ	^ŋg	^ŋ͡mg͡b
Nasals	m	n	ɲ	ŋ	ŋ͡m
Fricative						h
Approximates		ɾ, l	j		w

Vowels

According to Stirtz (2014),[3] ’Bëlï has nine vowel phonemes that can be divided into [+/- ATR] sets. The vowel [ə] is an allophone that does not occur in roots without other [+ATR] vowels:

[-ATR]	[+ATR]
ɪ	i
ʊ	u
ɛ	e
ɔ	o
a	(ə)

References

1. ’Bëlï at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Endangered Languages Project data for Beli (Sudan).
3. Stirtz, Timothy M. 2014. 'Bëlï Phonology, Tone and Orthography. (SIL Electronic Working Papers 2014-002.) SIL International. 34pp.