N'KO

N'KO (= "I [N] say [KO]") is an alphabet developed in 1949 by Souleymane Kanté in Kankan, Republic of Guinea. One of his goals was to show that African languages, and Mandinka (closely related to Bambara) in particular, could be written. Another of his goals was to increase people's knowledge of Islam by translating the Quran into Mandinka and writing it in N'KO. A third goal was to preserve traditional knowledge, by giving people a way to write it down in their own language without having to go to school. N'KO is becoming increasingly popular, with the number of people literate in it probably numbering in the tens of thousands.

Here is the standard N'KO alphabet and numbers:

N'KO alphabet and numbers

Nasality, tones, and vowel length are indicated by diacritics:

N'KO diacritics

N'KO shows influences from both European languages (the shapes of some of the characters) and Arabic (the alphabetical order and the fact that it is written from right to left). N'KO was originally designed for Mandinka, but it was soon extended to accommodate other languages. Here are some of the extended characters:

N'KO extended characters

Note: The examples were constructed using an N'KO font that I am currently developing.

Signature in N'KO

Some References

Dalby, David. 1969. Further indigenous scripts of West Africa : Manding, Wolof and Fula alphabets and Yoruba " holy " writing. African Language Studies 10, p. 161-181.

Kanté, Ibrahima. 1992. Syllabaire N'ko-Francais.

Kanté, Souleymane and Baba Jaané. 1992 [1962]. Nko : kodo-yidalan wala fasarilan haman kodofolan. Conakry, Librairie N'ko.

Oyler, Dianne White. 1995. For 'All Those Who Say N'ko': N'ko Literacy and Mande Cultural Nationalism in the Republic of Guinea. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida.

Revised 14 August 1998

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