Songhai

American  

[song-gahy] / sɒŋˈgaɪ /

noun

plural

Songhais,

plural

Songhai

1. a member of a group of peoples living along the Niger River in the area of Timbuktu and Gao in Mali and in adjacent areas of Niger and Burkina Faso.

2. a West African empire dominated by the Songhai that flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries.

3. the Nilo-Saharan language of the Songhai.

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Songhai British  

/ sɒŋˈɡaɪ /

noun

1. a member of a Nilotic people of W Africa, living chiefly in Mali and Niger in the central Niger valley

2. the language or group of dialects spoken by this people, now generally regarded as forming a branch of the Nilo-Saharan family

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Example Sentences

“ECOWAS said they had a non-coup policy,” said Adedayo Ademuwagun, a Lagos-based analyst with Songhai Advisory, a risk assessment firm.

From New York Times • Nov. 28, 2023

The advance of Songhai’s army forced the Tuareg nomads to flee, which allowed the Songhai to capture the salt-producing center of Taghaza in the north.

From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022

Just as the cities of Songhai linked sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and the Mediterranean by means of trade, the African ports on the Indian Ocean connected Africa to South and East Asia.

From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022

The collapse of both Songhai and Kanem-Bornu allowed emergent polities like Dahomey, Oyo, and Segou to flourish, but tensions soon arose among them as competition for trade escalated.

From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022

And for myself, I lie in my hammock at night and whisper the names to the darkness: Dahomey, Taghaza, Sankore, Accra, the ancient realm of Songhai.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson