Names For Days Of The Week In Soninke & Wolof

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides information about names for days of the week in Soninke and Wolof. Soninke and Wolof are two traditional West African languages.

This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series that provides information about and lists for day names in various African languages. Click the "African languages days of the week" tag to find other posts in this ongoing series.

The content of this post is presented for linguistic, cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/09/excerpts-from-two-articles-by-fallou.html for a related pancocojams post entitled "Excerpts From Two Articles By Fallou Ngom About The Use Of French, Arabic, English, & Pulaar Loanwords In Senegal's Wolof Language"

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GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT SONINKE (LANGUAGE)
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soninke_language
"The Soninke language (Soninke: Sooninkanxanne[3]) is a Mande language spoken by the Soninke people of West Africa. The language has an estimated 1,096,795 speakers, primarily located in Mali, and also (in order of numerical importance of the communities) in Senegal, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ghana. It enjoys the status of a national language in Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania.
The language is relatively homogeneous, with only slight phonological, lexical, and grammatical variations."...

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Excerpt #2:
From https://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Soninke/
"Soninke Language

Soninke (also called Marka, Maraka, Sarakole, Sarakule, Sarawule, Serahuli, Silabe, Toubakai, Wakore, Gadyaga, Aswanik, Diawara) is a Mande language of the Niger-Congo language family. It is the national language of Mali. Soninke is also spoken in Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, and Senegal.

There are more than one million Soninke speakers worldwide.

Soninke dialects include Azer (Adjer, Aser), Kinbakka, and Xenqenna."...

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Excerpt #3
From http://files.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/audio/languagelessons/mauritania/MR_Soninke_Language_Lessons.pdf
Days Of The Week [in Soninke]
Tineeni Monday
Talaata Tuesday
Araba Wednesday
Alaxamisa Thursday
Al juma Friday
Sibiti Saturday
Alahadi Sunday
Koota su Every day

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GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT WOLOF
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolof_language
Wolof ... 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. Unlike most other languages of Sub-Saharan Africa, Wolof is not a tonal language.

Wolof originated as the language of the Lebu people.[3][4] It 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. "Dakar-Wolof", for instance, is an urban mixture of Wolof, French, and Arabic.

"Wolof" is the standard spelling and may refer to the Wolof people or to Wolof culture. Variants include the older French Ouolof and the principally Gambian "Wollof". "Jolof", "jollof", etc., now typically refers either to the Jolof Empire or to jollof rice, a common West African rice dish. Now-archaic forms include "Volof" and "Olof".

The English language is believed to have adopted some Wolof words, such as banana, via Spanish or Portuguese,[5] and yum/yummy, from Wolof nyam "to taste";[6] nyam in Barbadian English[7] meaning "to eat" (also compare Seychellois Creole nyanmnyanm, also meaning "to eat").[8]

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Excerpt #2
From http://www.omniglot.com/writing/wolof.htm
"Wolof (Wollof)

Wolof is a member of the Senegambian branch of the Niger-Congo language family with about 7 million speakers in Senegal, France, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Mauritania. Wolof is one of the six national languages of Senegal (Senegaal / سِنِڭَالْ), along with Serer, Mandinka, Pulaar, Diola and Soninke.

Wolof was first written with a version of the Arabic script known as Wolofal, which is still used by many older men in Senegal. The Wolof orthography using the Latin alphabet was standardised in 1974 and is the official script for Wolof in Senegal.

Wolof is also sometimes written with the Garay alphabet which was devised by Assane Faye, a Senegalese artist, in 1961. This alphabet is written from right to left and is modelled loosely on the Arabic script."...

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Excerpt #3
From DAYS OF THE WEEK / BÉSI AYUBÉS BI
From https://jangawolof.wordpress.com/2007/12/27/days-of-the-week-besi-ayubes-bi/
December 27, 2007 by Amadou
"Wolof names for the days of the week are mostly adopted from Arabic.:

[...]

Monday – Alteneh / Altinay / Altine [al-ti-ney]
Tuesday – Talarta / Talata / Talaata [ta-laa-ta]
Wednesday – Arlahrba / Alarba / Àllarba [al-lar-ba]
Thursday – Alheames / Alxamess / Alxames [al-kha-mes]
Friday – Arjuma / Ajuma / Àjjuma [aj-ju-ma]
Saturday – Gaaw / Gaawo / Gaawu [gaa-woo]
Sunday – Dibéér / Dibeer / Dibéer [dee-beyr]

Saturday may also be known as Aséér. (found this trans. in a Gambian source)"

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Help please! While I've found online information about Serer (Serer-Sine), I've not been able to find any internet list of the names for the days of the week in that language. Please add to online information about traditional African languages by sharing the names for the days of the week in Serer in the discussion thread of this post. Thanks!

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