| Soninke | |
|---|---|
| Sooninkanxanne سࣷونِکَنْخَنّࣹ | |
| Native to | Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ghana |
| Ethnicity | Soninke people |
Native speakers | 2.1 million (2006–2011)[1] |
Niger-Congo
| |
| Latin Arabic (Wolofal) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | snk |
| ISO 639-3 | snk |
| Glottolog | soni1259 |
The Soninke language (Soninke: Sooninkanxanne,[2] سࣷونِکَنْخَنّࣹ), also known as Serakhulle or Azer or Maraka,[3] is a Mande language spoken by the Soninke people of West Africa. The language has an estimated 3 million speakers, primarily located in Mali and Mauritania, and also (in order of numerical importance of the communities) in Senegal, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea. It enjoys the status of a national language in Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and The Gambia.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | ⟨m⟩ m | ⟨n⟩ n | ⟨ñ⟩ ɲ | ⟨ŋ⟩ ŋ | |||
| Stop and Affricate |
voiceless | ⟨p⟩ p | ⟨t⟩ t | ⟨c⟩ t͡ʃ | ⟨k⟩ k | ⟨q⟩ q | |
| voiced | ⟨b⟩ b | ⟨d⟩ d | ⟨j⟩ d͡ʒ | ⟨g⟩ ɡ | |||
| Fricative | ⟨f⟩ f | ⟨s⟩ s | ⟨x⟩ x ~ χ | ⟨h⟩ h | |||
| Trill | ⟨r⟩ r | ||||||
| Approximant | ⟨w⟩ w | ⟨l⟩ l | ⟨y⟩ j | ||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i, iː | u, uː | |
| Close-mid | e, eː | o, oː | |
| Open | a, aː |
Long vowels are written double: aa, ee, ii, oo, uu.
References
- ↑ Soninke at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ↑ Lexicon Soninke-French-English Archived 2008-12-30 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Olsen, James Stuart; Meur, Charles (1996). The Peoples of Africa: an Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 532-533. ISBN 9780313279188. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
- ↑ Moussa Diagana, Ousmane (2013). Dictionnaire soninké-français (Mauritanie). Karthala.
- ↑ Gràcia; Contreras, Lluïsa; Joan Miquel (2005). El Soninké i el Mandinga. Universitat de Girona.
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External links
- PanAfriL10n page on Soninke
- Soninkara.org: La langue soninké
- Collection of documents in Soninke
- Decree No. 2005-991 of 21 October 2005 relating to the spelling and the separation of words in Soninke via the website of the Senegalese Journal officiel (in French)
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