| Seereer-Siin | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | Senegal and the Gambia | |
| Total speakers | 1,183,120 | |
| Language family | Niger-Congo
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | None | |
| ISO 639-2 | niv | |
| ISO 639-3 | srr | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Seereer-Siin (many spelling variants), or Serer proper, is a language of the Northern Atlantic branch of Niger-Congo spoken by 1,154,760 people in Senegal and 28,360 people in the Gambia. It is the principal language of the Serer people.
Contents |
Phonology
Vowels
 |
This section requires expansion. |
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | c | k | q | ʔ | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||||
| Prenasalized | mb | nd | ɲɟ | ŋɡ | ɴɢ | |||
| Implosive | Voiceless | ɓ̥ | ɗ̥ | ʄ̥ | ||||
| Voiced | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | |||||
| Fricative | f | s | x | h | ||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||
Serer greetings
The following greetings and responses and spoken in most regions of Senegal that have serer speakers.
Nam fi'o? (pronounced, nam feeyoh) = How are you doing? -response = mexe meen (prounounced, may hay men) = I am here.
Ta mbind na? (pronounced, tah mbind nah) = How is the family? -Response = Owa maa (pronounced owa maa) = it is good.
In Senegalese culture, greetings are very important. Sometimes, villagers will spend minutes greeting each other.
References
- ^ Mc Laughlin (2005:203)
Bibliography
- Crétois, L. (1972). Dictionnaire sereer-français (différents dialects). Dakar: Centre de Linguistique Appliquée de Dakar. (French)
- Fal, A. (1980). Les nominaux en sereer-siin: Parler de Jaxaaw. Dakar: Nouvelles Editions Africaines. (French)
- McLaughlin, Fiona (1994). "Consonant mutation in Seereer-Siin". Studies in African Languages 23: 279–313. (English)
- McLaughlin, Fiona (2000). "Consonant mutation and reduplication in Seereer-Siin". Phonology 17: 333–363. doi:. (English)
- Mc Laughlin, Fiona (2005), "Voiceless implosives in Seereer-Siin", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35 (2): 201–214, DOI 10.1017/S0025100305002215 (English)
- Senghor, L. S. (1994). "L'harmonie vocalique en sérère (dialecte du Dyéguème)". Journal de la Société des Linguistes 14: 17–23. (French)
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