(self-designation, Tog Naat), a people living in the region of the lower course of the Sobat River and to the southwest of the river, in the southern part of Sudan, and also in the border regions of Ethiopia. Population, about 700,000 (1970, estimate). The Nuer language is Nilotic. Feudal-patriarchal relations and tribal-clan religious cults have survived among the Nuer. The basic social unit is the large patriarchal family. The Nuer engage in distant-pasture livestock raising (cattle) and hoe farming (millet, corn, garden crops, and tobacco); a small number of Nuer work in enterprises of the lumber industry and on state plantations.
the language of the Nuer. It is spoken in southern Sudan and extreme western Ethiopia, where it is called Abbigar. Nuer is spoken by about 700,000 persons (1970, estimate). Nuer belongs to the Nilotic language group. There are two dialect groups, Nuer proper and Atwot. Phonetic features include pharyngealized vowels and a system of three tones.
Nuer is an inflected language. The means of expressing grammatical meanings include internal consonantal, vocalic, and tonal inflection of the stem, prefixation, and to a lesser degree, postfixation. There are two main cases, nominative and genitive. Accusative and locative meanings are sometimes expressed formally. The word order is verb-subject-object, with postpositive attributive. Possession is expressed by combination of the construct form of the possessed with the genitive of the possessor. Nuer is a written language and is used to a limited extent as a language of the school and administration.