Palor language

Last updated
Palor
Palar
Native to Senegal
Region Thies
Ethnicity Serer-Palor
Native speakers
10,700 (2007) [1]
Dialects
  • Ba'ol
  • Kajor
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 fap
Glottolog palo1243
ELP Paloor

Palor (Falor, Paloor) is a language spoken in Senegal. The speakers of this language - the Palor people or Serer-Palor, are ethnically Serers but they do not speak the Serer-Sine language. Like the Lehar, Saafi, Noon and Ndut languages, their language is classified as one of the Cangin languages attached to the Niger–Congo family. Palor is closer to Ndut.

Contents

Other names

Sili [2] or Sili-Sili (the name for their language) and Waro (the name for themselves). [1]

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The Njuup tradition is a Serer style of music rooted in the Ndut initiation rite, which is a rite of passage that young Serers must go through once in their lifetime as commanded in the Serer religion.

Serer maternal clans or Serer matriclans are the maternal clans of the Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania. The Serer are both patrilineal and matrilineal. Inheritance depends on the nature of the asset being inherited – i.e. whether it is a maternal asset which requires maternal inheritance or paternal asset requiring paternal inheritance (kucarla). The Serer woman play a vital role in royal and religious affairs. In pre-colonial times until the abolition of their monarchies, a Serer king would be required to crown his mother, maternal aunt or sister as Lingeer (queen) after his own coronation. This re-affirms the maternal lineage to which they both belong (Tim). The Lingeer was very powerful and had her own army and palace. She was the queen of all women and presided over female cases. From a religious perspective, the Serer woman plays a vital role in Serer religion. As members of the Serer priestly class, they are among the guardians of Serer religion, sciences, ethics and culture. There are several Serer matriclans; not all of them are listed here. Alliance between matriclans in order to achieve a common goal was, and still is very common. The same clan can be called a different name depending on which part of Serer country one finds oneself in. Some of these matriclans form part of Serer mythology and dynastic history. The mythology afforded to some of these clans draws parallels with the Serer creation narrative, which posits that: the first human to be created was a female. Many Serers who adhere to the tenets of Serer religion believe these narratives to contain profound truths which are historic or pre-historic in nature.

Professor Souleymane Faye is a Senegalese professor of linguistics at the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), current head of the Serer Division at the Centre de linguistique appliquée de Dakar, author of Serer and Cangin languages and a journalist. Himself Serer from the Faye family, he has authored and co-authored several books and papers in Serer, Wolof, French and English. As of 2015, Professor Faye is Head of Seereer and Cangin Languages at the Seereer Resource Centre.

References

  1. 1 2 Palor at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Wilson, William André Auquier. 2007. Guinea Languages of the Atlantic group: description and internal classification. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik, 12.) Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Bibliography