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Soninke
Soninke
Sooninkanxanne سࣷونِکَنْخَنّࣹ
Native to	Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ghana, Burkina Faso
Region	West Africa
Ethnicity	Soninke
Native speakers	2.3 million (2017–2021)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Mande Western Northwestern Soninke–Bobo Soninke–Bozo Soninke; ; ; ; ; ;
Dialects	Azer;
Writing system	Latin ; Arabic (Wolofal)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	snk
ISO 639-3	snk
Glottolog	soni1259
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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 2.3 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.^[1] 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
Stop and Affricate	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

^[4]^[5]

Long vowels are written double: aa, ee, ii, oo, uu.

Dialects

Dialects of Soninke include the Berber-inflected Azer dialect.

References

^ ^a ^b Soninke at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
^ "Lexicon Soninke-French-English". Archived from the original on 2008-12-30.
^ 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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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)

This article about Mande languages is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[e27-1] Soninke at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)

[2] "Lexicon Soninke-French-English". Archived from the original on 2008-12-30.

[3] 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.

[4] Moussa Diagana, Ousmane (2013). Dictionnaire soninké-français (Mauritanie). Karthala.

[5] Gràcia; Contreras, Lluïsa; Joan Miquel (2005). El Soninké i el Mandinga. Universitat de Girona.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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