o - Aceh Books website

3CV"
MANDING-SPEAKING PEOPLES 483
the Karta region of Mali, north of Bamako. And the Somono fishing people,
who live along the Niger in Mali, speak Bambara as a first language.
Approximately 11 million people in nine modern African nations speak a
Manding language, with about two-thirds of these speaking it as a first language.
The Manding languages are part of the large Niger-Congo language family and
as such are related to many other West African languages (Akan of Ghana,
Yoruba of Nigeria) and even distantly to the Bantu languages spoken in much
of central, eastern and southern Africa (see Bantu-speaking Peoples).
Mande-kan has simple and direct grammatical structures. As with many African
languages, tone is important for meaning. Identical words often are distinguished
by nothing more than the differences in relative pitch of the voice
when saying them. Aside from some recent publications in Latin script (many
of which have been products of national literacy programs), local records using
modified Arabic script and fairly extensive use of traditional graphic symbols
and ideograms for mystical purposes, the Manding languages remain important
only in the oral mode. Indeed, Manding speakers preserve their vital historical
traditions and practice their oral art through the medium of the spoken word.
The oral literature of Manding speakers is widely noted as some of the best in
the world.
In addition to language, what gives Manding speakers a sense of unity is their
knowledge of having common origins and a common cultural heritage. At the
root of this heritage is the once-great Mali Empire. A small state of Mali—al-
Bakri, the Arab geographer of the mid-eleventh century, called it "Malil"—
founded by several Mandinka clans and centered on the upper Niger, existed
from early in the second millenium, but its period of expansion and greatness
came later. In the thirteenth century the "lion king," Sundiata, unified the
Mandinka, conquered others and took advantage of the lucrative trade passing
between the Sahara Desert and the goldfields of the more southerly forests to
make Mali strong and its leading families wealthy.
Foreign merchants from across the Sahara came to Mali's leading cities, and
with them came Islam. The religion blended with local religious practices and
maintained an importance, particularly among the Mandinka and Dyula, down
through the centuries. Mali's famous ruler, Mansa Musa, provided evidence of
Islam's influence when in 1324 he made a pilgrimage to Mecca. In Cairo he
spent or gave away so much gold that he disrupted the monetary standard of the
eastern Mediterranean. Evidence of Islam's penetration among Manding speakers
today is reflected in the fact that over 90 percent of Senegambia Mandinka and
Ivory Coast-Guinea Dyula are Muslims. Such percentages decline considerably
among the Bambara and some fringe groups.
It was out of Manden, the core area of the Mali Empire, that Manding speakers
and Manding influences spread. Mandinka moved west and southwestward from
the upper Niger. Manding influences moved southward primarily with traders,
a word for which in all Manding languages is dyula. Many of these itinerant
merchants were "Mandingized" Soninke (Sarakole) who were moving between