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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
The definition and boundaries of ethnic groups depend on how
people perceive themselves and others. Language, cultural
characteristics, and common ancestry may be used as markers of
ethnic identity or difference, but they do not always define
groups of people. Thus, the people called Atuot and the much
larger group called Nuer spoke essentially the same language,
shared many cultural characteristics, and acknowledged a common
ancestry, but each group defined itself and the other as
different. Identifying ethnic groups in Sudan was made more
complicated by the multifaceted character of internal divisions
among Arabic-speaking Muslims, the largest population that might
be considered a single ethnic group.
The distinction between Sudan's Muslim and non-Muslim people
has been of considerable importance in the country's history and
provides a preliminary ordering of the ethnic groups. It does
not, however, correspond in any simple way to distinctions based
on linguistic, cultural, or racial criteria nor to social or
political solidarity. Ethnic group names commonly used in Sudan
and by foreign analysts are not always used by the people
themselves. That is particularly true for non-Arabs known by
names coined by Arabs or by the British, who based the names on
terms used by Arabs or others not of the group itself. Thus, the
Dinka and the Nuer, the largest groups in southern Sudan, call
themselves, respectively, Jieng and Naath.
Data as of June 1991
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