N'Ko script: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:04, 24 April 2024

Revision as of 15:40, 24 April 2024

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{{short description|Alphabet for the Manding languages of West Africa}}

{{distinguish|N'KoNKo language}}

{{Infobox writing system

|name = N'KoNKo

|native_name = ߒߞߏ

|type = [[Alphabet]]

|time = 1949–present

|languages = [[N'KoNKo language|N'KoNKo]], [[Manding languages]] ([[Mandingo language|Mandingo]], [[Maninka language|Maninka]],<br>[[Bambara language|Bambara]], [[Dyula language|Dyula]])

|creator = [[Solomana Kante|Solomana Kanté]]

|unicode = [https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U07C0.pdf U+07C0–U+07FF]

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}}

'''N'KoNKo''' ({{Lang-nqo|ߒߞߏ}}) is an [[alphabetic script]] devised by [[Solomana Kante|Solomana Kanté]] in 1949, as a modern [[writing system]] for the [[Manding languages]] of West Africa.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/nqo|title=N'ko|date=2019|editor-last=Eberhard|editor-first=David|editor2-last=Simons|editor2-first=Gary|website=Ethnoloque|access-date=June 12, 2019|editor3-last=Fennig|editor3-first=Charles}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Oyler|first=Dianne|date=Spring 2002|title=Re-Inventing Oral Tradition: The Modern Epic of Souleymane Kanté|journal=Research in African Literatures|volume=33|issue=1|pages=75–93 |doi=10.1353/ral.2002.0034|jstor=3820930|s2cid=162339606|oclc=57936283}}</ref> The term ''N'Ko'', which means ''I say'' in all Manding languages, is also used for the [[N'Ko language|Manding literary standard]] written in the N'Ko script.

The script has a few similarities to the [[Arabic script]], notably its direction ([[right-to-left]]) and the letters that are connected at the base. Unlike Arabic, it is obligatory to mark both [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]] and [[vowel]]s. N'Ko tones are marked as [[diacritic]]s, in a similar manner to the marking of some vowels in Arabic.