Senegalese

Senegalese as a people group are the citizens of Senegal counted by nationality rather than by ethnicity. Senegal's peoples include the Wolof (about two in five), the Fula (Haalpulaar), Serer, Jola (Diola), Mandinka and Soninke; Wolof is the country's common language and French the language of school and government. Abroad, Senegalese of these peoples share a national identity, Wolof as an everyday language and, for nearly all, Islam lived through the Sufi brotherhoods. Splitting them into their peoples is a recommendation, since no source counts them.

Senegalese take pride in teranga, hospitality, and keep the food of home abroad: thieboudienne (rice and fish), yassa chicken, mafé peanut stew and attaya, sweet green tea brewed in three rounds over long conversation. Wrestling, mbalax music, sabar drumming and the flowing grand boubou carry national identity, and hometown associations and the brotherhoods' dahiras, prayer circles that also pool money, organise community life wherever they settle.

Almost all Senegalese are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki school who belong to a Sufi brotherhood: the Tijaniyya, the largest, whose founder Ahmad al-Tijani is buried in Fez; the Mouridiyya of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, centred on Touba and its yearly Grand Magal pilgrimage; the Qadiriyya; and the Layene. Disciples pledge loyalty to a marabout, chant the founders' poems in dahira circles and seek blessing (baraka) at shrines, while amulets and older spirit beliefs persist beneath Islam. A small Christian minority, mostly Catholic Serer and Jola, lives alongside them.

The complete Bible exists in Wolof (Kàddug Yàlla gi, also printed in Arabic-script Wolofal) and French, with the New Testament or portions in Pulaar, Serer, Jola and other Senegalese languages, the JESUS film and Global Recordings audio in the main languages. Senegal's churches are small and drawn mostly from the Serer, Jola and southern minorities; the Wolof and Fula majorities remain among the least reached peoples of West Africa, their identity bound up with the brotherhoods.