Mande · ISO 639-3 mlq
Western Maninkakan Language
Western Maninkakan is a Mande language spoken by about 1.6 million people in 2 countries. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Western Maninkakan is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Language family
- Mande
- Western Mande
- Manding-Kpelle
- Central Mande
- Manding-Jogo
- Manding-Vai
- Manding-Mokole
- Manding
- West Manding
- Xasonka
- Western Maninkakan
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Western Maninkakan language
Western Maninkakan is spoken by about 1.6 million people, which makes it the 356th most spoken language in the world — just behind Limburgan (1.6 million) and ahead of Central Malay (1.6 million). It belongs to the Mande language family and, more precisely, to the Xasonka group within the Manding-Kpelle branch.
Where is Western Maninkakan spoken?
Western Maninkakan is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Senegal (1.6 million) and Mali (1.3 million).
Share of the population that speaks Western Maninkakan: Senegal 8.5% (1.6 million) and Mali 5.9% (1.3 million).
Western Maninkakan is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Western Maninkakan is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Mandinka, Bambara, Eastern Maninkakan, Sankaran Maninka, Dyula, Susu and 1 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 mlq.
Frequently asked questions about Western Maninkakan
How many people speak Western Maninkakan?
Where is Western Maninkakan spoken?
What language family does Western Maninkakan belong to?
Is Western Maninkakan an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.