Back Soninke (volk) Afrikaans السننكي Arabic السننكى ARZ Soninké AST سنینکهلر AZB Санінкэ Byelorussian Soninke mɔgɔw BM Soninkes Catalan Soninke German Soninkoj Esperanto

Soninke people

Soninke
Sarakollé / Aswanik
A Portrait of a Soninke man (1890)
Total population
Over 2.0 million[citation needed]
Regions with significant populations
 Mali2,124,000 (9.8%) [1]
 Senegal225,154 (1.4%) [2]
 Gambia142,606 (8.2%) [3]
Languages
Soninke, French
Religion
Predominantly Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
Yalunka people

The Soninke (Sarakolleh) people are a West African Mande-speaking ethnic group found in Mali, southern Mauritania, eastern Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea (especially Fouta Djallon).[4] They speak the Soninke language, also called the Serakhulle or Azer language, which is one of the Mande languages.[5] Soninke people were the founders of the ancient empire of Ghana or Wagadou c. 200–1240 CE, Subgroups of Soninke include the Jakhanke, Maraka and Wangara. When the Ghana empire was destroyed, the resulting diaspora brought Soninkes to Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinée-Conakry, modern-day Republic of Ghana, Kano in Nigeria, and Guinea-Bissau where some of this trading diaspora was called Wangara,[6] leading to the saying “when Americans landed on the moon, a Soninke was already there” in Senegal, with other versions across West Africa.[7]

Predominantly Muslims, the Soninke were one of the early ethnic groups from West Africa to convert to Islam in about the 10th century.[8] The contemporary population of Soninke people is estimated to be over 2 million.[9] The cultural practices of Soninke people are similar to the Mandé peoples, and those of the Imraguen of Mauritania. They include traditional Islamic rites of marriage,[10] circumcision,[11] and have social stratification.[12][13]

  1. ^ "Mali". www.cia.gov. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  2. ^ "Senegal". www.cia.gov. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  3. ^ "Distribution of the Gambian population by ethnicity 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003 and 2013 Censuses - GBoS". www.gbosdata.org. Archived from the original on 2021-11-19. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
  4. ^ Ralph A. Austen (1999). In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature and Performance. Indiana University Press. p. 143. ISBN 0-253-33452-7.
  5. ^ Andrew Dalby (1998). Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages. Columbia University Press. p. 574. ISBN 978-0-231-11568-1.
  6. ^ John O. Hunwick (2003). Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Saʿdi's Taʾrīkh Al-Sūdān Down to 1613. BRILL Academic. pp. xxviii with footnote 18. ISBN 90-04-12822-0.
  7. ^ Caris-Donnay, Sirio (2019). "Mali Empire". African History. Oxford Research Encyclopedias.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference asante121 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Diagram Group (2013). Encyclopedia of African Peoples. Routledge. p. 825. ISBN 978-1-135-96341-5.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Brand2001p69 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ouldzeidoune2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference gomez24 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference bella1987 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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