Maninka (Malinke), or more precisely Eastern Maninka, is the name of several closely related languages and dialects of the southeastern Manding subgroup of the Mande branch of the Niger–Congo languages. It is the mother tongue of the Malinké people and is spoken by 3,300,000 speakers in Guinea, where it is the main language in the Upper Guinea region, and Mali, where the closely related Bambara is a national language, as well as in Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, where it has no official status. It was the language of court and government used during the Mali empire.