These ethnic divisions are reflected in the distribution of work. The Bambara, Dogon and the Senoufo are usually peasants, and Bozo, fishermen, and Marka and the Malinke, traditionally traders, make up the bulk of the urban population, the Tuareg, the Peul (Fulani) and the Moors ( Berbers), nomads are mostly farmers.

Islam, tinged with animism, is the religion of 90% of Malians. Some 9% of them have retained animist beliefs. Christianity affects only 1% of the population. 

 The local languages

The country has about thirty languages, but only a dozen are spoken by more than 100000 people. They are also equipped with an alphabetic writing since 1967. Of all the national language, Bambara (2.7 million people as their mother tongue), a language of the Niger-Congo family, the language is still the most important especially as it is understood by at least four million people.

At the center is Mali, Lake Debo until Gao (and the Republic of Niger), we find the Songhai (6%), a language Nilo Saharan Africa. In the north (Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal), it speaks Tamasheq, the language of the Tuareg Berbers, as well as the Arabic hasanya (or Moorish), the two languages are spoken by 5% of the population of Mali. All other languages are spoken in the South, where many local idioms are more or less tangled. The Fulani or Fulfulde (Kayes, Segou and Mopti) is spoken by 17% of the population, the language is akin to the languages of Wolof and Toucouleurs. Others include the Dogon (Mopti), the Senoufo (Segou) and the samo (Mopti), spoken by 12% of the population. Most Malian languages belong to this great family Niger-Congo, which is divided into several subgroups, including gur, the Mandingo, the western Atlantic and the kwa.

Other languages are part of the family-Semitic chamito such as Arabic hasanya (or Moorish) group chamite and Tamasheq (Tuareg) Berber group, but some belong to the family Nilo-Saharan (and songaï daoussak) Among the Niger-Congo language with more than 100000 speakers include:

Mandingo group: Bambara, bozo sorogama, bozo tiéyaxo,
Gur group: bomu
West Atlantic group: Fulah or fulfude
Language Not classified: Dogon
Chamito-Semitic languages: Arabic hasanya