N'Ko alphabet

N'Ko
Type	alphabet
Languages	N'Ko
Creator	Solomana Kante
Time period	1949 to the present
ISO 15924	Nkoo, 165
Direction	Right-to-left
Unicode alias	NKo
Unicode range	U+07C0–U+07FF

N'Ko (ߒߞߏ) is both a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949, as a writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa, and the name of the literary language itself written in the script. The term N'Ko means I say in all Manding languages.

The script has a few similarities to the Arabic script, notably its direction (right-to-left) and the connected letters. It obligatorily marks both tone and vowels.

History

Kante created N'Ko in response to what he felt were beliefs that Africans were a cultureless people, since prior to this time no indigenous African writing system for his language existed. N'Ko came first into use in Kankan, Guinea, as a Maninka alphabet and was disseminated from there into other Mande-speaking parts of West Africa. N'Ko Alphabet Day is April 14, relating to April 14, 1949, the date the script is believed to have been finalized.^[1]

The introduction of the alphabet led to a movement promoting literacy in the N'Ko alphabet among Mande speakers in both Anglophone and Francophone West Africa. N'Ko literacy was instrumental in shaping the Mandinka cultural identity in Guinea, and it has also strengthened the Mande identity in other parts of West Africa.^[2]

Current usage

As of 2005, it is principally used in Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire (respectively by Maninka and Dioula-speakers), with an active user community in Mali (by Bambara-speakers). Publications include a translation of the Qur'an, a variety of textbooks on subjects such as physics and geography, poetic and philosophical works, descriptions of traditional medicine, a dictionary, and several local newspapers. It has been classed as the most successful of the West African scripts.^[3] The literary language used is intended as a koine blending elements of the principal Manding languages (which are mutually intelligible), but has a particularly strong Maninka flavour.

The Latin script with several extended characters (phonetic additions) is used for all Manding languages to one degree or another for historical reasons and because of its adoption for "official" transcriptions of the languages by various governments. In some cases, such as with Bambara in Mali, promotion of literacy using this orthography has led to a fair degree of literacy in it. Arabic transcription is commonly used for Mandinka in The Gambia and Senegal.

Letters

The N'Ko alphabet is written from right to left, with letters being connected to one another.

Vowels

ɔ	o	u	ɛ	i	e	a
ߐ	ߏ	ߎ	ߍ	ߌ	ߋ	ߊ

Consonants

r	d	ch	j	t	p	b
ߙ	ߘ	ߗ	ߖ	ߕ	ߔ	ߓ
m	l	k	f	gb	s	rr
ߡ	ߟ	ߞ	ߝ	ߜ	ߛ	ߚ
n'		y	w	h	n	ny
ߒ		ߦ	ߥ	ߤ	ߣ	ߢ

Tones

Numbers

N'ko and computers

With the increasing use of computers and the subsequent desire to provide universal access to information technology, the challenge arose of developing ways to use N'ko on computers. From the 1990s on, there were efforts to develop fonts and even web content by adapting other software and fonts. An MS-DOS word processor called Koma Kuda was developed by Prof. Baba Mamadi Diané from the University of Cairo.^[4] However the lack of intercompatibility inherent in such solutions was a block to further development.

Pango 1.18 and GNOME 2.20 have native support for the N'ko languages. An iOS calculator in N'ko, N'ko:Calc, is available on the Apple app store. An iOS app for sending email in N'ko is also available: Triage-N'ko. There is a virtual keyboard named virtual-keyboard-nko to type N'ko characters on Windows Operating System.

An N’Ko font, Conkary, is available for Windows 8, OS X, and Open Office’s Graphite program, which was developed by SIL International.^[5]

Unicode

N'Ko script was added to the Unicode Standard in July 2006 with the release of version 5.0.

UNESCO's Programme Initiative B@bel supported the preparation of a proposal to encode N'Ko in Unicode. In 2004, the proposal, presented by three professors of N'Ko (Baba Mamadi Diané, Mamady Doumbouya, and Karamo Kaba Jammeh) working with Michael Everson, was approved for balloting by the ISO working group WG2. In 2006 N'Ko was approved for Unicode 5.0.

The Unicode block for N'Ko is U+07C0–U+07FF:

The literary language

N'Ko literature is evolving into a literary language, known as kangbe 'clear language', that is based on a compromise dialect of several Manding languages. Mande speakers use kangbe to communicate in writing.^[8] For example, the word for 'name' in Bamanan is tɔgɔ and in Maninka it is toh. In written communication each person will write it tô in N’Ko, and yet read and pronounce it as in their own language.

References

Sources

• Condé, Ibrahima Sory 2. Soulemana Kanté entre Linguistique et Grammaire : Le cas de la langue littéraire utilisée dans les textes en N’ko (in French)
• Conrad, David C. (2001). Reconstructing Oral Tradition: Souleymane Kanté’s Approach to Writing Mande History. Mande Studies 3, 147-200.
• Dalby, David (1969) 'Further indigenous scripts of West Africa: Mandin, Wolof and Fula alphabets and Yoruba 'Holy' writing', African Language Studies, 10, pp. 161–181.
• Davydov, Artem. On Souleymane Kanté's "Nko Grammar"
• Everson, Michael, Mamady Doumbouya, Baba Mamadi Diané, & Karamo Jammeh. 2004. Proposal to add the N’Ko script to the BMP of the UCS
• Oyler, Dianne White (1994) Mande identity through literacy, the N'ko writing system as an agent of cultural nationalism. Toronto : African Studies Association.
• Oyler, Dianne (1995). For ‘All Those Who Say N'ko’ N'ko Literacy and Mande Cultural Nationalism in the Republic of Guinea. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida.
• Oyler, Dianne White (1997) 'The N'ko alphabet as a vehicle of indigenist historiography', History in Africa, 24, pp. 239–256.
• Singler, John Victor (1996) 'Scripts of West Africa', in Daniels, Peter T., & Bright, William (eds) The World's Writing Systems, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 593–598.
• Vydrine, Valentin F. (2001) 'Souleymane Kanté, un philosophe-innovateur traditionnaliste maninka vu à travers ses écrits en nko', Mande Studies, 3, pp. 99–131.
• Wyrod, Christopher. 2008. A social orthography of identity: the N’ko literacy movement in West Africa. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:27-44.
• B@bel and Script Encoding Initiative Supporting Linguistic Diversity in Cyberspace 12-11-2004 (UNESCO)

External links

• N'Ko Institute
• Kanjamadi
• Observations on the use of N'ko
• Omniglot page on N'ko, with more links
• Nkohome, N'ko tutorial site with information on N'ko publications and contacts
• Information about Manding languages
• An introduction to N'Ko
• "Casablanca Statement" (on localization of ICT) translated & written in N'Ko
• PanAfriL10n page on N'Ko
• Translation of the Meaning of the Holy Quran in N'ko
• Everyone Speaks Text Message (Tina Rosenberg, New York Times Magazine, Dec. 11, 2011)

See also