Guinea - Ethnic Groups
There are about two dozen ethnic groups in Guinea, ranging in size from a few thousand to nearly 1 million people. Three major groups constitute about 75 percent of the total, and each one predominates in a particular geographical region. The Soussou are preponderant in Lower Guinea, the Peul in Middle Guinea, and the Malinké in Upper Guinea. Many minor groups in these three regions tend to be assimilated by the dominant one. No single group predominates in the Forest Region, but the various peoples who live there are similar in culture and social organization.
Many ethnic groups are known by various names. In some cases people call themselves by a different name from the one given them by their neighbors. The Peul are a case in point. Peul is the name used by French speakers, whereas English speakers refer to them as Fulani. Their own name is Fulbé (sing., Pullo) or some variant of that name. A name often used in Guinea is Foulah. Generally, differences in spelling or pronunciation result from different ways of handling the same sound.
Language is an obvious feature distinguishing the ethnic groups in Guinea from one another, and the names of the principal ethnic groups are the same as, or similar to, the languages they speak. Retained notions of ethnic identity and objective variations of cultural patterns often accompany and reinforce differences in languages. In some instances, however, groups with similar cultural patterns speak different languages, as for example in the Forest Region. In others, groups with distinctive cultural patterns may speak the same language, as in the Fouta Djallon (the mountainous region that takes up most of Middle Guinea).
The last sample population survey listing ethnic affiliation was carried out in 1954 and 1955. At that time the Peul were the largest group numerically, constituting 28.6 percent of the population, followed by the Malinké with 22.4 percent. The Soussou were the third largest with 13.1 percent. The forest groups together made up 18.1 percent of the total. By 2012 it was estimated that the population was Fulani (Peul) 33.9%, Malinke 31.1%, Soussou 19.1%, Guerze 6%, Kissi 4.7%, Toma 2.6%, other/no answer 2.7%.
Both the Malinké and the Soussou have increased in numbers because they assimilated members of smaller ethnic groups living among or near them. Thus, according to tentative estimates, the Malinké and the Peul each accounted for about 30 percent of the population in the early 1970s. The Soussou share had grown to 16 percent, and the proportion of forest peoples had remained stable at approximately 18 percent. The fact that no single group could attempt to dominate the entire country helped create an equilibrium, but the predominance of one group in three of the four geographical areas created a definite tendency toward regionalism.
There were indications in the decades after independence that differences in languages, custom, and religion, which for centuries have set the people off from — and often against — one another, continued to intrude in everyday affairs. Neither the government nor the ruling party could ignore the persistence of group loyalties and ethnic identification. This was demonstrated on the one hand by concessions to traditional practices and on the other by the apparent failure of some governmental measures that did not or could not take ethnic differences into account. Nevertheless, by the 1970s ethnic factors seemed to be less important in Guinea than in many other parts of Africa. Increasing numbers of people began regarding themselves as sharing a single Guinean and African heritage, largely as a result of the cohesive force of the country's single political party.
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