Noon language

Noon (Non, None, Serer-Noon, Serer-Non) is a Cangin language of Senegal spoken in the Thiès region (14°47'0"N / 16°55'0"W). There is an estimated population of 10,000- 50,000 speakers worldwide, rendering this language to be vulnerable. Ethnologue reports that it is 84% cognate (and 68% intelligible) with Lehar, essentially a divergent dialect, and 68% cognate with the other Cangin languages. The Noon people identify themselves ethnically as Serer. However, their language, often called Serer-Noon on the assumption that it is a Serer dialect, is not closely related to the principal language of the Serer population, Serer-Sine. Like many of the local languages in Senegal, the Noon language is officially recognized as one of the national languages of the country. A Latin alphabet was proposed for Noon in 2001 and adopted by the Senegalese government in 2005. The alphabet consists of 47 letters, as listed below. The Noon alphabet contains 27 consonant letters. Glottal stop is not written at the beginning of the word, and it has no separate form for upper-case letters. The pre-nasalized consonants are written mb, nd, ñj, ŋg. Geminate consonants are written with double letters, such as ɓɓ, cc, ff, hh, kk, ll, mm, nn, pp, ss, tt, ww, yy. These are not considered separate letters of the alphabet. The letters b, d, g, j, ɗ, ƴ, ñ do not occur doubled. The Noon alphabet contains 20 vowel letters. −ATR vowels are written with the letters: a, e, i, o, u; the +ATR equivalents are distinguished with a diacritic: ë, é, í, ó, ú. Long vowels are written double: aa, ee, ii, oo uu and ëe, ée, íi, óo, úu (only the first letter carries a diacritic). Long vowels count as distinct letters of the alphabet. In general, there are three rules regarding capitalization in Noon. Much like other languages, they capitalize letters at the beginning of sentences and names. Rule 1. An uppercase is used at the beginning of each enunciation point, and after each interrogation point (question mark), exclamation point, or the beginning of a quotation after a colon.