N'Ko script: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:44, 24 April 2024

Revision as of 23:48, 24 April 2024

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

{{distinguish|NKoN'Ko language}}

{{Infobox writing system

|name = NKo

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}}

'''NKo''' ({{Lang-nqo|ߒߞߏ}}), also known as N'Ko, 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 ''NKo'', which means ''I say'' in all Manding languages, is also used for the [[NKo language|Manding literary standard]] written in the NKo 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. NKo tones are marked as [[diacritic]]s, in a similar manner to the marking of some vowels in Arabic.