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I enlivened some obvious country links, added a link to Soninke language and am moving a couple of phrases there.--A12n 01:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]


OH GOD ORIGINAL RESEARCH KILL IT Vorratt 19:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Needs MUCH editing (January 2008)

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There's some decent content hidden in there (though largely uncited), but the prose is unencyclopedic, overblown, and awkward. Please help!T L Miles (talk) 17:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Regarding the description of the Soninke (and Bambara) as "Mande-speaking"

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@Lazone91: Regarding of your earlier deletions of all mention of the Soninke, as "Mande" or "Mande-speaking", I do not think this is necessary or necessarily constructive/an improvement. Adding the linguistic affiliation of an group can be helpful and help, for the general reader, to situate them in the cultural/linguistic landscape of their region (and globally). This kind of information is also not uncommonly included on pages about ethnic groups (including those from outside Africa) such as the Turkic Uzbeks, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbeks, or the Ugrian/Uralic-speaking Mansi and Hungarians, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansi_people and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarians (Uralic, for example, is a fairly ancient language family with a time depth comparable to that of Indo-European.)

Your comparison to describing Italians as "Indo-European" does not seem to apply here, since (as explained in the notes), though branches of Mande and IE often have a similar time depth, IE languages dominate almost all of Europe (with few exceptions), whereas West Africa alone is much more linguistically diverse, including, with Mande languages (which may or may not be a divergent branch of Niger-Congo) and many other deeply-rooted/differing branches of the Niger-Congo family spread variously all over the region, along with a few Nilo-Saharan languages (e.g. Kanuri, Songhai) and Chadic Afro-Asiatic languages (e.g. Hausa, and certain languages of the Mandara region of Cameroon). The comparison of French and Chinese with Mandinka and Kpelle also does not seem apt here. French and Chinese belong to entirely different unrelated families (separated by at least 15,000 and very possibly more than 30,000 years), with even proposed and contested superfamilies such as Nostratic - supposedly dated to about 15,000 years ago - that include IE nonetheless not proposing the inclusion of Chinese/Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman). This would not be comparable to Mandinka and Kpelle (which both belong to the Central-West branch of Mande, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mande_languages), or even Soninke and Kpelle. The Mande family itself has been estimated by some to date to around 7,000 years ago/around 5,000 BC, based partly on estimates of the divergence times of its branches. Though if the Niger-Congo family is older than the Mesolithic and has no traceable link to Nilo-Saharan, as ethno-linguist Roger Blench seems to most recently propose (and Mande is a basal/early-splitting branch of Niger-Congo), proto-Mande's initial divergence could be older, and if, as some propose, Mande is not part of the Niger-Congo family at all, then its initial divergence could be older still, i.e. maybe significantly more than 10,000 years (but that is speculation and probably WP:OR). But nevertheless, according to Vydrin, the existing branches of/within Mande have a distance/time depth comparable to those of Indo-European, not of French and Chinese. See here, from Vydrin: https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01375776/document, and Vydrin also concludes "that speakers of Proto-Mande most probably lived around the second half of the 4th millennium BC" https://www.jolr.ru/files/(10)jlr2009-1(107-142).pdf.

One additional suggestion might be to also describe/include descriptions of the Soninke (and Bambara) as belonging to their respective specific branches of the Mande family (similar to how the Poles might be described as "Slavic"/"Slavic-speaking" or "West Slavic", the Bretons as "Celtic", the Navajo as "Athabaskan", the Hausa people as "Chadic", and the Amhara people as "Semitic" or as speaking "an "Afro-Asiatic language of the Semitic branch" - Semitic is also a quite ancient family and its parent Afro-Asiatic much more so). Thus a description something like "Northwest languages Mande-speaking" or "of the Northwestern branch of the Mande family" could be used in the case of the Soninke, and "of the "Manding branch of the Mande family" or Manding-speaking" in the case of the Bambara. Skllagyook (talk) 17:30, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What bothers me is that you speak of the mande as if it were a people, each ethnic group is different. Creating a Mande People article is a big mistake, in addition there is more confusion because the Mandinka are also called Mande peoples. Mande is the name of the region of origin of the Mandingo. I advise you to read Djibril Tamsir Niane's book "Soundiata, l'epopée Mandingue". You can see that Mandé is a region. In the article "Mande Peoples" contains several things that are wrong, like saying that the Kora is a typical Mande instrument, while it is Mandika. The kpelle do not use the Kora and many other ethnic groups do not. Badenya and Fadenya are Mandinka terms that are not found in other ethnic groups. Mandé is a linguistic group. The Soninke gave birth to the Jahanke. The Mandinka gave birth to Bambara, Khassonké and Dyula. The Kagoro (I'm sure you don't know them) gave birth to the Mandinka and some of them integrated into the Soninke Lazone91 (talk) 09:05, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lazone91: The "Mande" are not a single people. I do not think I have spoken of them as such, nor do I consider them that; the "Mande" instead are a group of related peoples sharing an ethno-linguistic common origin, and each has a distinct culture (though they may share some cultural features). If the article on them states that the Kora is a "typical Mande instrument" that would indeed be an innacuracy (and should be changed/corrected - I may change it), since, as you correctly point out, the kora is mostly used (and likely invented) by the Mandinka and seldom if at all by other groups. Skllagyook (talk) 14:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There we have things in common. But there are several things to review Lazone91 (talk) 19:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]


@Lazone91: Yes. I have just made several edits to the Mande peoples page (the page's edit history here: [[1]]). There were indeed some issues with it. There I, both clarified/specified that some (though not all) of the cultural practices the article incorrectly attributed to the "Mande" generically are in fact specifically associated with the Mandinka/Manding peoples (such as the kora and the epic of Sundaita), and also added material pertaining to other Mande peoples such as the Soninke and their close relatives (since previously, much of the article in those sections centered on Manding culture with less mention of others) - as well as adding other details. Is there anything else you suggest be reviewed? I will continue to look over the Mande peoples article. Skllagyook (talk) 19:35, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Askia Mohammad I as Soninke people

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Notifying recent editors: @Austronesier and ShaveKongo:
@Zahamey: The article Askia Mohammad I gives a source for Askia Mohammad I being Soninke. It also gives a source suggesting otherwise. That he is Soninke seems to be more accepted. Do you have a reliable source that overrules the existing sources? FYI: wp:Reliable sources in non-English language are acceptable, though English is preferred. You also said that it isn't sourced (presumably referring to the entry on this article). Neither are the others on Soninke people#Notable Soninke people. Some entries don't have citations nor even articles. Why are you removing just Askia Mohammad I? You need to discuss here, get wp:consensus before removing again. Adakiko (talk) 00:00, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The matter is contentious. In Askia Mohammad I we cite an article by Stefan Bühnen who writes:[2]:
  • "Beginning with Maurice Delafosse, in a footnote to the TF [= Taʽrīkh al-fattāsh], historians of Songhay have proposed to associate 'Sillanke', 'Sila' and 'Țūru' or 'Țūrī' with the Soninke jamus Sila and Ture. I will attempt to demonstrate that a close reading of the Arabic forms of the names suggests a different derivation (pp. 85–86)."
Bühnen thus documents that many scholars have proposed a Soninke affiliation of Askia Mohammad I, although he personally disagrees. –Austronesier (talk) 00:11, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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