Pronunciation
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Gambian English is the variety of English spoken in The Gambia. [1] [2] Gambian English has fewer speakers than any other variety of West African English (WAE), and shares similarities with Sierra Leonean English. [3] The differences between Gambian English and other dialects of African English are mostly lexical and phonological. Gambian English has been influenced by various indigenous Gambian languages. [4]
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The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia and Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, Gambia is the smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal, except for its western coast on the Atlantic Ocean. It is situated on both sides of the lower reaches of the Gambia River, which flows through the centre of the country and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The national namesake river demarcates the elongated shape of the country, which has an area of 11,300 square kilometres (4,400 sq mi) and a population of 2,468,569 people in 2024. The capital city is Banjul, which has the most extensive metropolitan area in the country; the second- and third-largest cities are Serekunda and Brikama.
Wolof is a Niger–Congo language spoken by the Wolof people in much of West African subregion of Senegambia that is split between the countries of Senegal, Mauritania, and the Gambia. 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.
African-American English is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers to a dialect continuum ranging from African-American Vernacular English to a more standard American English. Like all widely spoken language varieties, African-American English shows variation stylistically, generationally, geographically, in rural versus urban characteristics, in vernacular versus standard registers, etc. There has been a significant body of African-American literature and oral tradition for centuries.
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and the symbol for the voiced fricative is used instead. Uvular affricates can certainly be made but are rare: they occur in some southern High-German dialects, as well as in a few African and Native American languages. Uvular consonants are typically incompatible with advanced tongue root, and they often cause retraction of neighboring vowels.
A standard language is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes a standardized form as one of its varieties. Typically, the language varieties that undergo substantive standardization are the dialects associated with centers of commerce, power and government. By processes that linguistic anthropologists call "referential displacement" and that sociolinguists call "elaboration of function", these varieties acquire the social prestige associated with commerce and government. As a sociological effect of these processes, most users of this language come to believe that the standard language is inherently superior or consider it the linguistic baseline against which to judge other varieties of language.
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique grammatical, vocabulary, and accent features, AAVE is employed by middle-class Black Americans as the more informal and casual end of a sociolinguistic continuum. However, in formal speaking contexts, speakers tend to switch to more standard English grammar and vocabulary, usually while retaining elements of the nonstandard accent. Despite being widespread throughout the United States, AAVE is not the native dialect of all African Americans, and not all speakers are African American.
The Mandinka or Malinke are a West African ethnic group primarily found in southern Mali, the Gambia, southern Senegal and eastern Guinea. Numbering about 11 million, they are the largest subgroup of the Mandé peoples and one of the largest ethnic-linguistic groups in Africa. They speak the Manding languages in the Mande language family, which are a lingua franca in much of West Africa. Virtually all of Mandinka people are adherent to Islam, mostly based on the Maliki jurisprudence. They are predominantly subsistence farmers and live in rural villages. Their largest urban center is Bamako, the capital of Mali.
Pickaninny is a pidgin word for a small child, possibly derived from the Portuguese pequenino. It has been used as a racial slur for African American children and a pejorative term for Aboriginal children of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. It can also refer to a derogatory caricature of a dark-skinned child of African descent.
The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, one billion to two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers, and the most widespread language geographically. The countries in which English is the native language of most people are sometimes termed the Anglosphere. Speakers of English are called Anglophones.
The Manding languages are a dialect continuum within the Niger-Congo family spoken in West Africa. Varieties of Manding are generally considered to be mutually intelligible – dependent on exposure or familiarity with dialects between speakers – and spoken by 9.1 million people in the countries Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Gambia. Their best-known members are Mandinka or Mandingo, the principal language of The Gambia; Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali; Maninka or Malinké, a major language of Guinea and Mali; and Jula, a trade language of Ivory Coast and western Burkina Faso. Manding is part of the larger Mandé family of languages.
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used.
The Jola or Diola are an ethnic group found in Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. Most Jola live in small villages scattered throughout Senegal, especially in the Lower Casamance region. The main dialect of the Jola language, Fogni, is one of the six national languages of Senegal.
World Englishes is a term for emerging localised or indigenised varieties of English, especially varieties that have developed in territories influenced by the United Kingdom or the United States. The study of World Englishes consists of identifying varieties of English used in diverse sociolinguistic contexts globally and analyzing how sociolinguistic histories, multicultural backgrounds and contexts of function influence the use of English in different regions of the world.
Cameroon English is an English dialect spoken predominantly in Cameroon, mostly learned as a second language. It shares some similarities with English varieties in neighbouring West Africa, as Cameroon lies at the west of Central Africa. It is primarily spoken in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon.
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain.
The Sierra Leone Creole people are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British, supported by abolitionists, under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown. Today, the Sierra Leone Creoles are 1.2 percent of the population of Sierra Leone.
Gambian literature consists of the oral and written literary tradition of the people of the Gambia. Oral literature, including the traditional griots and various forms of ritual poetry, has historically been the predominant type of cultural transmission in line with the wider Senegambia. An English-language, written Gambian literature has emerged since the 1960s, spearheaded by Lenrie Peters.
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