| N'Ko | |
|---|---|
| ߒߞߏ | |
| Region | Guinea,Guinea-Bissau,Mali,West Africa |
| NKo script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | nqo |
| ISO 639-3 | nqo |
| Glottolog | nkoa1234 |
N'Ko[a] (ߒߞߏ) is astandardized unifiedkoiné form of severalManding languages written in theN'Ko alphabet. It is used inGuinea,Guinea-Bissau,Mali,Ivory Coast,Burkina Faso and some other West African countries, primarily, but not exclusively, in written form, whereas in speech the different varieties of Manding are used:Maninka,Bambara,Dyula and others.
It is aliterary register with a prescriptive grammar known as ߞߊ߲ߜߍ (kángbɛ,kán-gbɛ "language-manner") codified bySolomana Kante, with themàninkamóri variety, spoken in Kante's nativeKankan region, serving as the mediatingcompromise dialect.[1][2][3][4]
Valentin Vydrin in 1999[5] and Coleman Donaldson in 2019[3] indicated that the popularity of writing Manding languages in the standardized N'Ko form is growing. This standardized written form is increasingly used forliteracy education among the speakers of different varieties.[6] It is also commonly used in electronic communication.[7]
The standard strives to represent all Manding languages in a way that attempts to show a common "proto-Manding" phonology and the words' etymology, including when the actual pronunciation in modern spoken varieties is significantly different. For example, there is at least one such convention, for representingvelars between vowels:[ɡ],[k],[ɣ],[x] orzero may be pronounced, but the spelling will be the same. For example, the word for "name" inBambara is[tɔɡɔ] and inManinka it is[tɔɔ], but the standard written N'Ko form isߕߐ߮tô. In written communication each person will write it in a single unified way using the N'Ko script, and yet read and pronounce it as in their own linguistic variety.
On June 27, 2024, N'Ko was added to Google Translate.[8][9]
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