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Soninke belongs to the Northern Branch of Mande. (Webbook)
Ethnologue lists the classification as: Niger-Congo, Mande, Western, Northwestern, Soninke-Bobo, Soninke-Boso, Soninke
It is spoken from the intersection of northeast Senegal, south central Mauritania, and west/southwest Mali, to a line running east roughly along the Mali-Mauritanian border. It is also spoken in parts of the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. (Webbook)
A map showing the areas where Soninke is spoken can ba seen at http://gamma.sil.org/silesr/2000/2000-003/soninke.htm
According to Ethnologue:
According to Ethnologue:
Soninke is a national language of Senegal and of Mali. Many Soninke speakers also speak Bambara, Mandinka or Fula as an additional language, depending on the location. (Webbook and Ethnologue)
Soninke has an orthography standardized by Senegalese government decree in l975 (see Bibliography), but these conventions have not been accepted in other areas where Soninke is spoken. (Webbook) [need more info, including on the orthography in Mali]
In general, it is Latin-based and includes extended characters.
Soninkara.org has a page on "Harmonisation de l'orthographe Soninké" http://www.soninkara.org/langue-soninke/harmonisation-soninke.php
According to information reported by Hartell (1993) and presented in Systèmes alphabétiques, the orthographies of Soninke in Senegal and Mali seem to be the same except for the character used for the palatal n, and inclusion of the letter q in Senegal:
A sample text is shown on the "Language Museum" site (it may or may not be current orthography in either Mali or Senegal): http://www.language-museum.com/s/soninke.htm
Unicode: most Unicode fonts with extended Latin ranges would include the necessary extended characters (for example, DejaVu, Code 2000, Doulos SIL, Gentium, Lucida Sans Unicode, Arial Unicode MS).
8-bit (Caution: these fonts will have intercompatibility problems and also cannot be used for web content):
The CNRS/LLACAN "AFRO" Tavultesoft Keyman keyboard (for AZERTY) is intended to support this language: http://www.tavultesoft.com/keyman/downloads/keyboards/details.php?KeyboardID=377&FromKeyman=0
HAADAMA RENMUM TAQUN DORONDEN DANTAQIYE DUNA NOXO (Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Soninké Version) http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/snn.htm
Not aware of any software localisation efforts.
Chanard, Christian (2006), Systèmes alphabétiques des langues africaines, LLACAN, CNRS, http://sumale.vjf.cnrs.fr/phono/
Dwyer, David (1997), Webbook of African Languages, http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html (page on "Soninke," http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Soninke_root.html )
Hartell, Rhonda L., ed. (1993), The Alphabets of Africa. Dakar: UNESCO and SIL. (The French edition, published the same year, is entitled Alphabets de Langues Africaines).
SIL International, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, "Soninke," http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=snk
SIL International, "ISO 639 Code Tables," http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/codes.asp
U.S. Library of Congress, "ISO 639.2: Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages: Alpha-3 codes arranged alphabetically by the English name of language," http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
Wikipedia, "Soninke language," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soninke_language
______, "Soninké," http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonink%C3%A9
