Serer

The Serer are a West African ethnoreligious people concentrated in Senegal, with smaller communities in Gambia and Mauritania, forming Senegal's third largest ethnic group at roughly 16 percent of its population; as of 2023 the Serer numbered more than 3 million overall, about 2.9 million of them in Senegal, 88,000 in Gambia and 5,000 in Mauritania. Most Serer speak the Serer language, now taught as part of Senegal's national school curriculum, while roughly 200,000 also speak related but distinct Cangin languages such as Ndut and Saafi. Traditionally described as people of the land and sea, the Serer have long combined farming, fishing, trade, boat building and animal husbandry, and they hold ancestral land as a place of deep spiritual as well as economic importance. The Serer resisted Islamization for close to a thousand years, and their pre-colonial Kingdom of Sine was remembered as an unyielding stronghold against it; today about 85 percent of Serer are Muslim, with others following Christianity or traditional Serer religion. The Serer are also known for Senegalese wrestling, called Laamb, and for the Sabar drumming tradition.