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Manding is a common name for several closely related languages in West Africa: Maninka (or Malinke), Bamana (or Bambara), Jula, Mandinka, Xasonka, etc., spoken by up to 40 million people. In this dictionary, forms of Malian Bamana and Guinean Maninka are included. The polysemy of words is represented in all details, the senses are represented hierarchically. Verbal valencies are indicated throughout and clarified by abundant illustrative examples. Numerous idiomatic expressions are given. Most of lexemes are provided with etymological information: sources of borrowing or proto-forms and their reflexes in other Mande languages. The dictionary is oriented toward advanced language learners and professional linguists, but it can be also useful for native speakers of Bamana and Maninka languages.

Ce tome présente le Ta:rikh Mandinka, un manuscrit rédigé en Arabe et en Mandinka, originaire du village de Bijini en Guinée-Bissau. Inédit jusqu’à présent, le manuscrit consiste en une compilation structurée et très originale sur le Kaabu, réunissant divers récits et chroniques focalisant les débuts mythiques et la chute de cet « empire » païen au milieu du 19ième siècle.Deux versions du manuscrit et plusieurs interprétations (lectures) du Ta:rikh sont reproduites, transcrites, traduites et analysées en tenant compte de questions philologiques, historiques et anthropologiques. L'analyse regarde la communauté cléricale de Bijini en tant que lieu de transmission de savoirs dans un contexte local et régional.Le point focal du livre est l’importance de la diaspora cléricale des Mandinka et Jaakanka (Jakhanké) dans le processus de la construction de l’histoire de l’ « empire » sòoninkee du Kaabu en Sénégambie. Le tome contient un glossaire des noms et des termes mentionnés par les sources, des illustrations, des tableaux, des cartes et des photographies. This volume presents a hitherto unpublished manuscript written in Arabic and Mandinka from the muslim village of Bijini in Guinea-Bissau, the Ta:rikh Mandinka, a unique and structured compilation unfolding the pagan "empire" of Kaabu from it's mythical beginnings to it's downfall in the nineteenth-century. Two existing manuscript versions and several oral interpretations of the Ta:rikh are reproduced, transcribed, translated, compared and analysed considering philological, historical and social-anthropological issues (chaps. 1-3). The fourth chapter deals with the clerical community of Bijini as a place of knowledge-transfer in it's local setting and within regional networks. The focus of the book is on the importance of the Mandinka and Jakhanka clerical diaspora in the making of the history of the Sooninkee "empire" of Kaabu in Senegambia. The volume contains a glossary of names and terms mentioned in the sources and is illustrated with maps, photographs and drawings.

The Epic of Sumanguru Kante contains the Bamana text and English translation of griot Abdoulaye Sako’s oral narrative of the life of Sumanguru, recorded in 1997 in Koulikoro (Mali), together with explanatory notes, a scholarly introduction, and sections on the Bamana language and musical accompaniment. Sumanguru is a familiar figure within Manding epic oral traditions about ancient Mali. But while these narratives generally focus on Sunjata Keita, Sako’s oral poem is rare in according Sumanguru the central role. In so doing he includes hitherto undocumented episodes relating to Sumanguru’s life and role as the ruler of Soso, the little known state said to have flourished in the western Sudan between the fall of ancient Ghana and rise of ancient Mali.