Mende language
| Mende | |
|---|---|
Mɛnde yia  | |
| Native to | Sierra Leone, Liberia |
| Region | South central Sierra Leone |
| Ethnicity | Mende people |
Native speakers | 1.5 million (2006)[1] |
Mande
| |
| Latin Mende Kikakui script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | men |
| ISO 639-3 | men |
| Glottolog | mend1266 |
Mende /ˈmɛndi/[2] (Mɛnde yia) is a major language of Sierra Leone, with some speakers in neighboring Liberia. It is spoken by the Mende people and by other ethnic groups as a regional lingua franca in southern Sierra Leone.
Mende is a tonal language belonging to the Mande language family. Early systematic descriptions of Mende were by F. W. Migeod[3] and Kenneth Crosby.[4]
Written forms[edit]
In 1921, Kisimi Kamara invented a syllabary for Mende he called Kikakui (
). The script achieved widespread use for a time, but has largely been replaced with an alphabet based on the Latin script, and the Mende script is considered a "failed script".[5] The Bible was translated into Mende and published in 1959, in Latin script.
The Latin-based alphabet is: a, b, d, e, ɛ, f, g, gb, h, i, j, k, kp, l, m, n, ny, o, ɔ, p, s, t, u, v, w, y. [6][7]
Mende has seven vowels: a, e, ɛ, i, o, ɔ, u. [8][9]
Phonology[edit]
Consonants[edit]
| Bilabial | Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | plain | p | t | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||
| prenasalized | m͡b | n͡d | ŋ͡ɡ | ||||
| Fricative | plain | f | s | h | |||
| voiced | v | ||||||
| Affricate | plain | k͡p | |||||
| voiced | d͡ʒ | ɡ͡b | |||||
| prenasalized | ɲd͡ʒ | ŋɡ͡b | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
Vowels[edit]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
Mende language in films[edit]
Mende was used extensively in the films Amistad and Blood Diamond, and was the subject of the documentary film The Language You Cry In.
References[edit]
- ^ Mende at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
- ^ Migeod, F. W. 1908. The Mende language. London
- ^ Crosby, Kenneth. 1944. An Introduction to the Study of Mende. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Unseth, Peter. 2011. Invention of Scripts in West Africa for Ethnic Revitalization. In The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts, ed. by Joshua A. Fishman and Ofelia García, pp. 23-32. New York: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Coble, Scott. n.d. "Mende." AboutWorldLanguages.com (accessed 8 October 2014)
- ^ "Langue : mende". Systèmes alphabétiques des langues africaines. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
- ^ A Mende Orthography Workshop: Ministry of Education, Freetown, January 21-25, 1980
- ^ Pemagbi, Joe. 1991. "A guide to Mende orthography." SLADEA.
- ^ Dwyer, David James (1969). Consonant Mutation in Mende. Michigan State University.
External links[edit]
- Bibliography on Mende
- The Mende syllabary (Omniglot)
- PanAfrican L10n page on Mende, Bandi & Loko
- Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in Mende (1916)
- OLAC resources in and about the Mende language
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