Mende language

Mende
Mɛnde yia
Spoken in Sierra Leone, Liberia
Region South central Sierra Leone
Native speakers 1,480,000  (date missing)
Language family
Niger–Congo ?
  • Mande
    • Western Mande
      • Southwestern
        • Mende–Loma
          • Mende–Bandi
            • Mende–Loko
              • Mende
Writing system Latin; Kisimi Kamara's Mende syllabary
Language codes
ISO 639-2 men
ISO 639-3 men

Mende (Mɛnde yia) is a major language of Sierra Leone, with some speakers in neighboring Liberia. It is spoken by the Mende people and by other ethnic groups as a regional lingua franca in southern Sierra Leone.

Mende is a tonal language belonging to the Mande branch of the Niger–Congo language family. In 1921, Kisimi Kamara invented a syllabary for Mende he called Kikakui (). The script achieved widespread use for a time, but has largely been replaced with an orthography using the Latin alphabet.

It was used extensively in the movies Amistad and Blood Diamond.

External links