Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A Wolof speaker, recorded in Taiwan. Wolof (/ ˈ w oʊ l ɒ f / WOH-lof; [2] Wolof làkk, وࣷلࣷفْ لࣵکّ) 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.
Wolof (/ ˈ w ɒ l ɒ f /) is a language of Senegal, the Gambia, and Mauritania, and the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula , it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family .
The languages of Mauritania include the official language, Arabic, three national languages, Pulaar, Soninke and Wolof, and French, a former official language which is still the language of working, [1] education and administration. [2]
Wolofal, like its parent system, the Arabic script, is an abjad.This means that only consonants are represented with letters. Vowels are shown with diacritics.As a matter of fact, writing of diacritics, including zero-vowel (sukun) diacritic as per the orthographic are mandatory.
Senegal is a Francophone country, where, as of 2024, 5.13 million (27.73%) out of 18.50 million people speak French. [2] In terms of usage, Wolof is the lingua franca and the most widely spoken language in Senegal, as a first or second language (80%). [3] Mande languages spoken include Soninke, and Mandinka.
This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Wolof on Wikipedia. It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Wolof in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them.
The Senegambian languages are well known for their consonant mutation, a phenomenon in which the initial consonant of a word changes depending on its morphological and/or syntactic environment. In Fula, for example, the initial consonant of many nouns changes depending on whether it is singular or plural:
The term "Serakhulle," although often claimed to be a Wolof word, was used for the Soninke at least as far back as the 16th century and is used by peoples as far apart as The Gambia and Hausaland. The Jahankas , a subgroup, refer to themselves as of Serakhulle extraction.