Mende language
| Mende | |
|---|---|
Mɛnde yia 
|
|
| Native to | Sierra Leone, Liberia |
| Region | South central Sierra Leone |
|
Native speakers
|
1.5 million (2006) |
|
Niger–Congo
|
|
| Latin; Kisimi Kamara's Mende syllabary | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | mend1266 |
Mende /ˈmɛndi/ (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 branch of the Niger–Congo language family. Early systematic descriptions of Mende were by F. W. Migeod and Kenneth Crosby.
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". 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
...
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