Laalaa

CAE

vigorous

Alternate Names: Lala, Lehar, Serer

Dialects: None known. 52% intelligibility with Noon ,. Lexical similarity: 84% with Noon ,, 74% with Saafi-Saafi ,, 68% with Ndut , and Palor ,, 22% with Serer-Sine ,.

Genealogy:

Niger-Congo
Atlantic-Congo
Atlantic
Northern
Cangin

Demographics: 12,000 (2007).

Language Use: Children learn Laalaa first. Youth being lost to cities causing decrease in L1 speakers. Shifting to Wolof [wol]. All domains. All ages. Positive attitudes. Adults bilingual in Wolof [wol]. Also use French [fra]. Used as L2 by Ndut [ndv].

Language Development: Literacy rate in L2: 60% French; 35% Wolof. Cultural association works on language development.

Typology: SVO; nontonal.

Writing System: Latin

Nation of Origin: Senegal

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