| Temne | |
|---|---|
| KʌThemnɛ | |
| Native to | Sierra Leone,Guinea |
| Region | NorthernSierra Leone |
| Ethnicity | Temne |
| Speakers | L1: 2.0 million (2021)[1] L2: 240,000 (1981)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | tem |
| ISO 639-3 | tem |
| Glottolog | timn1235 |
| Temne[2] | |
|---|---|
| Person | a-temne |
| Language | ka-temne |
Temne (alsoThemne, Timne;IPA:[t̪emnɛ][missing the tones]) is a language of theMel branch of theNiger–Congo language family, spoken by theTemne people. Temne speakers live mostly in theNorthern Province andWestern Area,Sierra Leone. Temne people can be found in a number of otherWest African countries as well, includingGuinea. Some Temnes have also migrated beyond West Africa seeking educational and professional opportunities, especially inGreat Britain, and theUnited States.
Temne is atonal language. Among consonants, Temne distinguishesdental andalveolar, but, unusually, the dental consonants areapical and the alveolar consonants arelaminal (and slightlyaffricated), the opposite of the general pattern, though one found also in the nearby languageLimba.[3][4]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t̪ | t | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | gb | ||||
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ | h | |||
| Affricate | tʃ | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Front | Mid | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | ə | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ʌ | ɔ |
| Open | a |
Temne has two tones: high and low.[5]
The alphabet of Temne includes the following characters anddigraphs:[4]
| a | ʌ | b | d | e | ɛ | ə | f | gb | h | i | k | kp | l | m | n | ŋ | o | ɔ | p | r | s | t | th | u | w |
| A | Ʌ | B | D | E | Ɛ | Ə | F | Gb | H | I | K | Kp | L | M | N | Ŋ | O | Ɔ | P | R | S | T | Th | U | W |
Earlier,[when?] Ȧȧ was used instead of Ʌʌ.[citation needed]
In 1861, C. F. Schlenker, a missionary of theChurch Missionary Society, published a collection of Temne fables and proverbs in Temne with a facing-text English translation.[6] Schlenker's source was a Temne man living inPort Loko in the late 1840s; Schlenker explains that he was an old man already at that time. The book also contains some of Schlenker's translations from the Bible into Temne.[citation needed]
In 1916Northcote Thomas published hisAnthropological Report on Sierra Leone; Part 2 contains a Temne-English dictionary[7] and Part 3 contains a grammar of Temne plus 27 stories told in Temne with interlinear English translation.[8] Many of the stories are about the trickster spider, calledpanis in Temne; the trickster spider is a popular character in the Temne,Vai,Mende, andLimba storytelling traditions of Sierra Leone.[9] In addition, Thomas'sSpecimens of Languages from Sierra Leone[10] contains tables comparing Temne vocabulary toKissi and other related languages.
