What are some ways war is affecting the lives of the Nuer and Dinka tribe?In the 1930s the Nuer population was estimated at around 200,000. The British colonial government's census of 1952 put their number at 250,000. Sudan gained independence in 1956, but the country had already plunged into a north-south civil war in 1955 that continued through 1972. The first government census after the war indicated that the Nuer numbered nearly 300,000 in a country of 15 million. That number was said to have risen to 800,000 when the civil war resumed in 1983. Over the last eighteen years of the war, at least a quarter of the 2 million estimated casualties are thought to have been Nuer, and their current population is estimated as approximately 500,000 of Sudan's total estimated population of 26 million.
Linguistic Affiliation. The Nuer language is in the Nilotic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family, a branch that includes Dinka, Luo, Shilluk, Anyuak, and a number of other language groups. Linguistic similarities between these groups and a shared vocabulary indicate a degree of shared origin or mutual influence.
