Soninke language

The Soninke language (Soninke: Sooninkanxanne, سࣷونِکَنْخَنّࣹ), also known as Serakhulle or Azer or Maraka, 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. It enjoys the status of a national language in Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and The Gambia.

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 (Ajami) N'ti script
Official status
Official language in	Mali
Language codes
ISO 639-2	snk
ISO 639-3	snk
Glottolog	soni1259
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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.

Dialects

Dialects of Soninke include the Berber-inflected Azer dialect.