The Yalunka, or Dialonké, are a Mandé-speaking people and the original inhabitants of Futa Jallon (French: Fouta Djallon), a mountainous region in Guinea, West Africa.

[9][10] The Yalunka fought against the Fula jihads, left Futa Jallon, migrating south to the foothills of the mountains in Mamou or east to live amongst the Mandinka people of Upper Guinea, others migrated and established new towns such as Falaba near the region where Rokel River starts, while the remaining of the Yalunka went further into the mountains to settle among the Kuranko, Limba and Kissi people.

[citation needed] The Yalunka people are referred to as Jalonca, Jalonga, Jalonka, Jalooke, Jalonke, Jalunka, Jalunke, Jellonke, Yalanka, Yalonga, Yalounka, Yalunga, Yalonka, Yalonke, Yalunke, Dialanké, Dialinké, Dialonka, Dialonque, Djallonké, Djallonka, Djallounké, Djallounka, Dyalonké, Dyalonka, or Dialonké.

Jallon is a name that portrays a situation of pride, unlike authors such as André Arcin have claimed, derived from the surname Diallo of the Fulani.

[17][18][19] The earliest evidence suggests that sometime around the eleventh century, the Yalunka people arrived in the hilly plateau region of the Futa Jallon in Guinea, since the disintegration of the Sosso Empire.

[9][22] The Fula people and their leaders, such as Karamokho Alfa and Ibrahima Sori, launched a series of jihads targeted against the Yalunka in the eighteenth century.

[23] The jihads contributed immensely to the Solima Yalunka state's creation in Guinea and Sierra Leone's northeastern boundary in the nineteenth century.

[27] The Yalunka society is patriarchal, consisting of households headed by a man, his wife or wives, and their unmarried children.

[27] Extended households form a compound, which may consist of two or more married men from the same father and their families, each living in a separate hut.

[27] The Yalunka people also utilize practices of the Bondo secret society which aims at gradually but firmly establishing attitudes related to adulthood in girls, discussions on fertility, morality and proper sexual comportment.