Mende | |
---|---|
Mɛnde yia / 𞠣𞡓𞢱𞠗 / | |
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. In southern Sierra Leone, it is the regional lingua franca that allows all tribes to communicate.
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
In 1921, Kisimi Kamara invented a syllabary for Mende he called Kikakui (𞠂𞠁𞠀 / ). 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
Consonants
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
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Close-mid | e | o | |
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
Open | a |
In films
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
- ^ Mende at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ 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
- 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