Noon

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A language of Senegal

ISO 639-3
snf
Alternate Names
Non, None, Serer, Serer-Noon
Autonym
Noon
User Population

32,900 (2007).

Location

Thiès region: Thiès town area.

Language Maps
Language Status

5 (Developing). Recognized language (2005, Decree No. 986 of 21 October).

Classification
Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Atlantic, Northern, Cangin
Dialects

Padee, Cangin, Saawii. Noon is very different from Serer-Sine [srr]. 68% intelligibility of Lehar [cae]. Lexical similarity: 84% with Lehar [cae], 74% with Safen [sav], 68% with Ndut [ndv] and Paloor [fap], 22% with Serer-Sine [srr].

Typology

SVO; nontonal.

Language Use

Children learn Noon first. All domains. Used by all. Positive attitudes. Most also use French [fra], as the language of education and government (Diouf et al 2017). Most also use Wolof [wol], as the language of commerce and interethnic communication (Sarr and Thiaw 2012).

Language Development

Literacy rate in L1: 10%. Literacy rate in L2: 70% in French [fra], 10% in Wolof [wol]. Grammar. NT: 2012.

Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Noon
Writing

Latin script [Latn].

Other Comments

Often identified by themselves and the majority population as Serer, which is a widely used name for a cultural or linguistic group which includes the Serer-Sine language and the 5 Cangin languages. Christian, Muslim.