Wolof
- Global speakers: 5,267,290
- Glottocode: nucl1347
- ISO 639-3: wol
While French is the official language of Senegal, Wolof is the most widely spoken language and serves as a lingua franca across various ethnolinguistic communities in the country. Significant waves of Senegalese immigration to the U.S. began in the 1970s, extending well-organized diaspora networks both in the region and in Europe (especially those associated with the Murid Sufi brotherhood based in Touba). Young Senegalese merchants, usually young men, made a living as street vendors selling a wide variety of products across Manhattan and in turn shipping American products back to Africa. Initially living in old Manhattan hotels set up for single bachelors, many Senegalese New Yorkers converged on Central Harlem, with West 116th between Malcom X and Frederick Douglass becoming Le Petit Senegal. Wolof speakers, of whom today there are thousands in the city, have also moved further north in Harlem, and to parts of Brooklyn, and especially to the Bronx. Increasingly diverse within itself, the Senegalese migration also paved the way for other traders and immigrants from Francophone West Africa.
Sites
NYC neighborhoods or towns in the metro region where the language community has a significant site, marked by a point on the map: