Serer, often broken into differing regional dialects such as Serer-Sine and Serer-Saloum, is a language of the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo family spoken by 1.2 million people in Senegal and 30,000 in the Gambia as of 2009. It is the principal language of the Serer people, and was the language of the early modern kingdoms of Sine, Saloum, and Baol. Serer is primarily written in the Latin alphabet.
The Serer religion or Serer spirituality (Serer: A ƭat Roog, meaning "the way of the Divine", "path of God", or "religious life"), is the original religious beliefs, practices, and teachings of the Serer people living in the Senegambia region in West Africa. The Serer religion believes in a universal supreme deity called Roog (or Rog). In the Cangin languages, Roog is referred to as Koox (or Kooh), Kopé Tiatie Cac, and Kokh Kox. Doctor of ethnology and lecturer in ethnosciences, Professor Simone Kalis writes that:
The Serer people are found throughout the Senegambia region. In the 20th century, around 85% of the Serer converted to Islam (Sufism), but some are Christians or follow their traditional religion. Despite resisting Islamization and jihads for almost a millennium - having been persecuted for centuries, most of the Serers who converted to Islam converted as recently as the 1990s, in part, trying to escape discrimination and disenfranchisement by the majority Muslim groups surrounding them, who still view the Serers as "the object of scorn and prejudice."
The Senegal River (Serer: "Seen O Gal" or "Senegal" - compound of the Serer term "Seen" or "Sene" or "Sen" (from Roog Seen, Supreme Deity in Serer religion) and "O Gal" (meaning "body of water")); Wolof: Dexug Senegaal, Arabic: نهر السنغال, romanized: Nahr as-Siniġāl, Hassaniyya pronunciation: [nahrˤ əs.säjnigaːl], French: Fleuve Sénégal) is a 1086-kilometre-long (675 mi) river in West Africa; much of its length marks part of the border between Senegal and Mauritania. It has a drainage basin of 270000 km (100000 sq mi), a mean flow of 680 m/s (24,000 cu ft/s), and an annual discharge of 21.5 km (5.2 cu mi). Important tributaries are the Falémé River, Karakoro River, and the Gorgol River. The river divides into two branches once it passes Kaédi. The left branch, called the Doué, runs parallel to the main river to the north. After 200 km (120 mi) the two branches rejoin a few kilometers downstream of Podor.
In 1972 Mali, Mauritania and Senegal founded the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS) to manage the river basin. Guinea joined in 2005. As of 2012, only very limited use was made of the river for the transportation of goods and passengers. The OMVS have looked at the feasibility of creating a navigable channel 55 m (180 ft) in width between the small town of Ambidédi in Mali and Saint-Louis, a distance of 905 km (562 mi). It would give landlocked Mali a direct route to the Atlantic Ocean.
Wolof (/ˈwoʊlɒf/ WOH-lof; Wolof làkk, وࣷلࣷفْ لࣵکّ) also known as Senegalese is a Niger–Congo language spoken by the Wolof people in much of the West African subregion of Senegambia that is split between the countries of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. Unlike most other languages of its family, Wolof is not a tonal language.
Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal, spoken natively by the Wolof people (40% of the population) but also by most other Senegalese as a second language. Wolof dialects vary geographically and between rural and urban areas. The principal dialect of Dakar, for instance, is an urban mixture of Wolof, French, and Arabic.
A griot (/ˈɡriːoʊ/; French: [ɡʁi.o]; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: ߖߋ߬ߟߌ, djeli or djéli in French spelling); also spelt Djali; Serer: paar or kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Griots are masters of communicating stories and history orally, which is an African tradition.
Instead of writing history books, oral historians tell stories of the past that they have memorized. Sometimes there are families of historians, and the oral histories are passed down from one generation to the next. Telling a story out loud allows the speaker to use poetic and musical conventions that entertain an audience. This has contributed to many oral histories surviving for hundreds of years without being written down.
Fula (/ˈfuːlə/ FOO-lə), also known as Fulani (/fʊˈlɑːniː/ fuu-LAH-nee) or Fulah (Fulfulde, Pulaar, Pular; Adlam: 𞤊𞤵𞤤𞤬𞤵𞤤𞤣𞤫, 𞤆𞤵𞤤𞤢𞥄𞤪, 𞤆𞤵𞤤𞤢𞤪; Ajami: ࢻُلْࢻُلْدٜ, ݒُلَارْ, بُۛلَر), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 36.8 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stretches across some 18 countries in West and Central Africa. Along with other related languages such as Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Atlantic geographic group within Niger–Congo, and more specifically to the Senegambian branch. Unlike most Niger-Congo languages, Fula does not have tones.
It is spoken as a first language by the Fula people ("Fulani", Fula: Fulɓe) from the Senegambia region and Guinea to Cameroon, Nigeria, and Sudan and by related groups such as the Toucouleur people in the Senegal River Valley. It is also spoken as a second language by various peoples in the region, such as the Kirdi of northern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria.
The West Atlantic languages (also the Atlantic languages or North Atlantic languages) of West Africa are a major subgroup of the Niger–Congo languages.
The Atlantic languages are spoken along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Liberia, though transhumant Fula speakers have spread eastward and are found in large numbers across the Sahel, from Senegal to Nigeria, Cameroon and Sudan. Wolof of Senegal and several of the Fula languages are the most populous Atlantic languages, with several million speakers each. Other significant members include Serer and the Jola dialect cluster of Senegal. Temne, a major language of Sierra Leone, was included in the Atlantic subgroup in earlier classifications but in modern proposals, it is no longer grouped within Atlantic.
The Serer people (Serer proper: Seereer or Sereer) are a West African ethnoreligious group and nation, "today scattered in several small states on the coast or pushed back into the woods of the interior, must be one of the oldest in Senegambia."They are the third-largest ethnic group in Senegal, making up 16% of the Senegalese population. They also reside in northern Gambia and southern Mauritania.
The Serer people originated in the Senegal River Valley, at the border of present-day Senegal and Mauritania, and moved south in the 11th and 12th century. They migrated again in the 15th and 16th centuries as their villages were invaded and they were subjected to religious persecution by Islamic forces. They have had a sedentary settled culture and have been known for their farming expertise and transhumant stock-raising.
The Senegambia (other names: Senegambia region or Senegambian zone, Senegàmbi in Wolof and Pulaar, Senegambi in Serer), in the narrow sense, is a historical name for a geographical region in West Africa roughly lying between the Senegal River and the Gambia River. However, there are also text sources which state that Senegambia is understood in a broader sense and equated with the term the Western region. This refers to the coastal areas between Senegal and Sierra Leone, where the inland border in the east was not further defined.
Geographically, the region lies within the tropical zone between the Sahel and the forests of Guinea, with Senegal and Gambian Rivers underpinning the region's geographical unity. The region encompasses the modern states of Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau, as well as portions of Mauritania, Mali, and Guinea. It should not be confused with the recent Senegambia Confederation, which was a loose confederation between The Gambia and Senegal from 1982 to 1989, set up just after The Gambia's 1981 coup d'état where the Senegalese government intervened to reinstate the democratically elected Gambian government.
The Senegambian languages, traditionally known as the Northern West Atlantic, sometimes confusingly referred to in literature as the Atlantic languages, are a branch of Atlantic–Congo languages most commonly spoken in Senegal and neighboring southern Mauritania, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea. The nomadic Fula people have also spread their languages from Senegal across the western and central Sahel. The most populous unitary language is Wolof, the national language of Senegal, with four million native speakers and millions more second-language users. There are perhaps 13 million speakers of the various varieties of Fula, and over a million speakers of Serer . The most prominent feature of the Senegambian languages is that they are devoid of tone, unlike the vast majority of Atlantic-Congo languages.