| Daju | |
| Also Known As: | Dagu |
| Ethnicity: | Daju people |
| Region: | Sudan, Chad, South Sudan |
| Map: | File:Map Daju.png |
| Familycolor: | Nilo-Saharan |
| Fam2: | Eastern Sudanic? |
| Fam3: | Southern Eastern? |
| Protoname: | Proto-Daju |
| Glotto: | daju1249 |
| Glottorefname: | Dajuic |
The Daju languages are spoken in isolated pockets by the Daju people across a wide area of Sudan and Chad. In Sudan, they are spoken in parts of the regions of Kordofan and Darfur, in Chad they are spoken in Wadai. The Daju languages belong to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan.[1]
The Daju languages are sub-classified as follows, following Stevenson (1956).
Proto-Daju has been partially reconstructed by Robin Thelwall (1981). In his judgement, the Eastern Daju languages separated from the others perhaps as much as 2,000 years ago, while the Western Daju languages were spread more recently, perhaps by the Daju state which dominated Darfur from about 1200 AD until scattered after the death of Kasi Furogé, the Daju king, and replaced by the Tunjur. The principal phonetic difference between the two branches is the reflex of proto-Daju *ɣ, reflected as Western *r and Eastern *x.
The typical verb root in Daju is a monosyllable of the form (C)VC(C). The perfective takes a prefixed k-; the imperfective, a prefixed a(n)-. The verb takes person suffixes, exemplified in Shatt (for the verb "drink" in the imperfective):
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | a-wux-u I drink | (w)a-wux-u-d-ök we drink | |
| 2nd person | wux-u you drink | wux-a-d-aŋ you (pl.) drink | |
| 3rd person | mö-wux-u s/he drinks | sö-wux-u they drink |
Suffixes on nouns serve to mark singulative (-tic, -təs), generic, and plural forms. The typical word order is subject–verb–object in most Daju languages, with exceptions such as Sila, and possessed–possessor.