Ethnic groups and languages in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is a multiethnic state in which numerous ethnic groups are native. In 2015, Sierra Leone had almost 7.1 million inhabitants who officially belong to 15 ethnic groups and just as many languages. Ethnologue , on the other hand, knows 25 living languages in Sierra Leone, two of which are threatened with extinction.
With more than two million people each, the Temne and Mende represent the largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone. Their languages are spoken most often as mother tongue, followed by Krio .
Official language in Sierra Leone is English , main traffic language (lingua franca) is Krio .
Ethnic groups and mother tongues
Note: Sorted by share in 2015.
| Ethnic group | Share in% (1963) |
Share in% (2003/04) |
Share in% (2013) |
Absolute (2015) |
Share in% (2015) |
language | Absolute (2015) |
Share in% (2015) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mende | 30.9 | 37.45 | 33.2 | 2,258,232 | 32.2 | Mende | 2,065,349 | 29.7 |
| Temne | 29.8 | 23.83 | 35.5 | 2.220.211 | 31.7 | Temne | 1,851,300 | 26.6 |
| Limba | 9.86 | 6.4 | 592.190 | 8.5 | Limba | 380.060 | 5.5 | |
| Kono | 4.4 | 363.051 | 5.2 | Kono | 306.824 | 4.4 | ||
| Koranko | 2.8 | 313,384 | 4.4 | Koranko | 277.356 | 4.0 | ||
| Fullah | 3.4 | 266,581 | 3.5 | Fullah | 173.003 | 2.5 | ||
| Susu | 203,779 | 2.9 | Susu | 155.175 | 2.2 | |||
| Kissi | 2.98 | 175.843 | 2.5 | Kissi | 154.341 | 2.2 | ||
| Loko | 2.53 | 2.9 | 165.692 | 2.4 | Loko | 91,668 | 1.3 | |
| Madingo | 2.26 | 2.4 | 160.080 | 2.2 | Madingo | 88,650 | 1.3 | |
| Sherbro (Bullom) | 1.20 | 2.6 | 134,606 | 1.9 | Sherbro | 81,304 | 1.2 | |
| Krio ( Creoles ) | 5.62 | 1,2 | 94,593 | 1.3 | Krio | 1,265,295 | 18.2 | |
| Yalunka | 51,781 | 0.7 | Yalunka | 44,935 | 0.6 | |||
| Crimea | 15,729 | 0.2 | Crimea | 1,669 | 0.0 | |||
| Vai | 0.06 | 1,205 | 0.0 | Vai | 1,043 | 0.0 |
Ethnologue also names the following languages for Sierra Leone, from which an occurrence of the respective ethnic groups in the country can be derived: Maninkakan ( Malinke ), N'Ko , Bassa ( Bassa ), Bullom So ( Bullom-Sherbro ), Gola ( Gola ), Klao , Pular ( Fullah ) and Bom . The economically influential Lebanese are among the most recently immigrated ethnic groups . The Kru and Bassa immigrated from Liberia . The Maroons are freed slaves .
literature
- C. Magbaily Fyle: Unity in Diversity: Ethnicity and National Consciousness in Sierra Leone , National Consultative Conference - Building a United and Cohesive Nation, 2013. ( PDF )
- Suzanne LeVert: Cultures of the World, Sierra Leone. Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-7614-2334-8 . ( PDF )
Web links
- Sierra Leone , on Ethnologue.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Sierra Leone 2015 Population and Housing Census national analytical report. Statistics Sierra Leone, October 2017, p. 89ff.
- ^ Sierra Leone. Ethnologue.com. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
- ↑ POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS SIERRA LEONE - The Analytic Report. Central Statistics Office, 1995, p. 15.
- ^ Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey (SLIHS) 2003/04. Government of Sierra Leone, November 2007. ( available online ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. )
- ^ Sierra Leone. CIA, In: The World Factbook, 2013. ( available online )
- ↑ Mohammed B. Sillah: The Lebanese Immigrants in Sierra Leone: A Market Dominant-Minority and Revisiting the Constitutional Statute for Naturalization and Citizenship , In: American International Journal of Social Science, Vol. 5, No. 4, August 2016. ( available online )
