N'Ko script

Nko (ߒߞߏ), also spelled N'Ko, is an alphabetic script devised by Solomana Kanté in 1949, as a modern writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa. The term Nko, which means I say in all Manding languages, is also used for the 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 and vowels. Nko tones are marked as diacritics.

History

File:Grave of Kanté Soulemane, inventeur de l'alphabet N'Ko.jpg

Grave of Solomana Kanté. The French at the bottom reads “Inventor of the N'Ko alphabet”.

Kanté created N’Ko in response to erroneous beliefs that no indigenous African writing system existed, as well as to provide a better way to write Manding languages, which had for centuries been written predominantly in Ajami script, which was not perfectly suited to the tones unique to Mandé and common to other West African languages. An anecdote popular with N'Ko proponents is that Kanté was particularly challenged to create the distinct system when, while in Bouake, he found a book by Kamel Mrowa who dismissed African languages as “like those of the birds, impossible to transcribe” despite said Ajami history. Kanté then devised N’Ko while he was in Bingerville, Côte d'Ivoire and later brought it to his native Kankan, Guinea.

N’Ko began to be used in many educational books, and the script is believed to have been finalized on April 14, 1949 – a date now celebrated as N’Ko Alphabet Day. Kanté initially used the system to transcribe religious, scientific, and philosophical literature, and even a dictionary. These texts were then distributed as gifts across the Manding-speaking parts of West Africa. The script received its first dedicated typewriter from Eastern Europe as Guinea had ties to the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

This introduction of the script led to a movement promoting N’Ko literacy among Mandé speakers in both Anglophone and Francophone West Africa. N’Ko literacy was thus instrumental in shaping Maninka cultural identity in Guinea, and strengthened Manding identity in wider West Africa.

On June 27, 2024, the N’Ko literary standard was added to Google Translate.

Current use

File:Online N'ko classroom via WhatsApp (cropped).jpg

Smartphone with a Nko class via WhatsApp

As of 2005, it was used mainly in Guinea and the Ivory Coast (respectively by Maninka and Dyula speakers), with an active user community in Mali (by Bambara speakers). Publications include a translation of the Quran, 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. Though taught mostly informally through Nko literacy promotion associations, Nko has also been introduced more recently into formal education through private primary schools in Upper Guinea.Template:Sfn It has been classed as the most successful of the West African scripts.

Nko literature generally uses a literary language register, termed kangbe (literally, 'clear language'), that is seen as a potential compromise dialect across Mandé languages. For example, the word for 'name' in Bamanan is tɔgɔ and in Maninka it is tɔɔ. Nko has only one written word for 'name', but individuals read and pronounce the word in their own language. This literary register is thus intended as a koiné language blending elements of the principal Manding languages, which are mutually intelligible, but has a very strong Maninka influence.

There has also been documented use of Nko, with additional diacritics, for traditional religious publications in the Yoruba and Fon languages of Benin and southwestern Nigeria.

Letters

The Nko script is written from right to left, with letters being connected to one another.

Vowels

Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script
File:NKo Aw.svg	File:NKo O.svg	File:NKo Uh.svg	File:NKo Eh.svg	File:NKo E.svg	File:NKo A.svg	File:NKo Ah.svg

Consonants

Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script
File:NKo R.svg	File:NKo T.svg	File:NKo D.svg	File:NKo Ch.svg	File:NKo J.svg	File:NKo P.svg	File:NKo B.svg
Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script
File:NKo M.svg	File:NKo Gb.svg	File:NKo L.svg	File:NKo K.svg	File:NKo F.svg	File:NKo S.svg	File:NKo Rr.svg
Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script
File:NKo Ng.svg	File:NKo H.svg		File:NKo Y.svg	File:NKo W.svg	File:NKo N.svg	File:NKo Ny.svg

Tones

Nko uses 7 diacritical marks to denote tonality and vowel length. Together with plain vowels, Nko distinguishes four tones: high, low, ascending, and descending; and two vowel lengths: long and short. Unmarked signs designate short, descending vowels. One dot below a vowel marks that vowel as nasal.

	high	low	rising	falling
short	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script
long	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script

Non-native sounds and letters

Nko also provides a way of representing non-native sounds through the modification of its letters with diacritics. These letters are used in transliterated names and loanwords.

Two dots above a vowel, resembling a diaeresis or umlaut mark, represent a foreign vowel: u-two-dots for the French Template:IPAslink sound, or e-two-dots for the French Template:IPAslink.

Diacritics are also placed above some consonant letters to cover sounds not found in Mandé, such as gb-dot for Template:IPAslink; gb-line for Template:IPAslink; gb-two-dots for Template:IPAslink; f-dot for Template:IPAslink; rr-dot for Template:IPAslink; etc.

Numerals

Nko numerals use positional notation. Unlike both Western and Eastern Arabic numerals, digits decrease in significance from right to left.

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script
File:NKO DIGIT ZERO.svg	File:NKO DIGIT ONE.svg	File:NKO DIGIT TWO.svg	File:NKO DIGIT THREE.svg	File:NKO DIGIT FOUR.svg	File:NKO DIGIT FIVE.svg	File:NKO DIGIT SIX.svg	File:NKO DIGIT SEVEN.svg	File:NKO DIGIT EIGHT.svg	File:NKO DIGIT NINE.svg

Punctuation

• ⸜...⸝ bracket paraphrased text, approximately equivalent to italics in Latin script.
• «...» bracket quoted text.
• Template:Angbr comma
• Template:Angbr exclamation mark
• Template:Angbr paragraph mark; marks the end of a section of text
• Template:Angbr apostrophe (elision of a vowel carrying a high tone)
• Template:Angbr apostrophe (elision of a vowel carrying a low tone)

A low hyphen is used for compound words and the ASCII hyphen Template:Angbr is used for splitting words at line breaks. There is no distinct computer character for the low hyphen; Unicode recommends using the non-breaking hyphen for that purpose.

Arabic punctuation marks used in Nko text include:

• Template:Angbr comma (may occur in the same text as Template:Angbr)
• Template:Angbr semicolon
• Template:Angbr question mark
• Template:Angbr ornate parentheses (graphic form may differ from Arabic)

Digitization

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 the Nko script on computers. From the 1990s onwards, there were efforts to develop fonts and even web content by adapting other software and fonts. A DOS word processor named Koma Kuda was developed by Prof. Baba Mamadi Diané from Cairo University. However the lack of intercompatibility inherent in such solutions was a block to further development.

Wikipedia

There is also a Nko version of Wikipedia in existence since 26 November 2019, it contains Template:NUMBEROF articles, with Template:NUMBEROF edits and Template:NUMBEROF users.

Unicode

The Nko script was added to the Unicode Standard in July 2006 with the release of version 5.0. Additional characters were added in 2018. While the script is spelled "N’Ko" in the relevant chapter of Unicode, the alias for the script is "Nko" and the Unicode block name is "NKo" (because the apostrophe is not allowed in block names).

UNESCO's Programme Initiative B@bel supported preparing a proposal to encode Nko in Unicode. In 2004, the proposal, presented by three professors of Nko (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, Nko was approved for Unicode 5.0. The Unicode block for Nko is U+07C0–U+07FF:

External links

• 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
• Virtual N'Ko keyboard by KeymanWeb
• How to write the N'ko alphabet (ߒߞߏ) of West Africa: A tutorial!, tutorial video on writing basic letters from:
• An Ka Taa: "Learn Manding—commonly referred to as Bambara, Dioula, Malinké or Mandingo!"
• 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, The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 11, 2011)