Mende language
Mande language of southern Sierra Leone
title: "Mende language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["mende-language", "mande-languages", "languages-of-sierra-leone", "languages-of-liberia", "mende-people"] description: "Mande language of southern Sierra Leone" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mende_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Mande language of southern Sierra Leone ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Mende |
| nativename | Mɛnde yia 𞠗𞢱 𞡓𞠣 |
| states | Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea |
| region | South central Sierra Leone |
| ethnicity | Mende people |
| speakers | million |
| date | 2020–2021 |
| ref | e27 |
| dia1 | Ko |
| dia2 | Kpa |
| dia3 | Sewawa |
| dia4 | Wanjama |
| image | Mendeirv.svg |
| imagescale | 0.7 |
| script | Latin |
| Mende Kikakui script | |
| familycolor | Niger-Congo |
| fam1 | Niger–Congo? |
| fam2 | Mande |
| fam3 | Western |
| fam4 | Southwestern |
| fam5 | Mende–Loma |
| fam6 | Mende–Bandi |
| fam7 | Mende–Loko |
| iso2 | men |
| iso3 | men |
| glotto | mend1266 |
| glottorefname | Mende (Sierra Leone) |
| notice | IPA |
| :: |
|name=Mende |nativename=Mɛnde yia 𞠗𞢱 𞡓𞠣 |states=Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea |region=South central Sierra Leone |ethnicity=Mende people |speakers= million |date=2020–2021 |ref=e27 |dia1=Ko |dia2=Kpa |dia3=Sewawa |dia4=Wanjama |image=Mendeirv.svg |imagescale=0.7 |script=Latin Mende Kikakui script |familycolor=Niger-Congo |fam1=Niger–Congo? |fam2=Mande |fam3=Western |fam4=Southwestern |fam5=Mende–Loma |fam6=Mende–Bandi |fam7=Mende–Loko |iso2=men |iso3=men |glotto=mend1266 |glottorefname=Mende (Sierra Leone) |notice=IPA
Mende (Mɛnde yia) is a major language of Sierra Leone, with some speakers in neighboring Liberia and Guinea. 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 language family. Early systematic descriptions of Mende were by F. W. Migeod and Kenneth Crosby. Ethel Aginsky decoded the language in her doctoral work.
Phonology
Consonants
::data[format=table]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | Plosive | plain | voiced | prenasalized | Fricative | plain | voiced | Affricate | voiced | prenasalized | Lateral | Nasal | Approximant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| p | t | k | k͡p | |||||||||||||||
| b | d | ɡ | ɡ͡b | |||||||||||||||
| m͡b | n͡d | ŋ͡ɡ | ŋɡ͡b | |||||||||||||||
| f | s | h | ||||||||||||||||
| v | ||||||||||||||||||
| d͡ʒ | ||||||||||||||||||
| ɲd͡ʒ | ||||||||||||||||||
| l | ||||||||||||||||||
| m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||||||||||||
| w | j | |||||||||||||||||
| :: |
Vowels
::data[format=table]
| Front | Central | Back | Close | Close-mid | Open-mid | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| i | u | |||||
| e | o | |||||
| ɛ | ɔ | |||||
| a | ||||||
| :: |
Mende is commonly described as having 5 tones: high, low, rising, falling, rising-falling. These serve as relative tones within a downstep system, though some researchers propose it has extra tones with a multi-level system as opposed to a binary one.
Written forms
In 1921, Kisimi Kamara invented a syllabary for Mende he called Kikakui ( / [[File:Ki-ka-ku.svg|30px|Kikaku]]). The script achieved widespread use for a time, but has largely been replaced with an alphabet based on the Latin script, and the Mende script is considered a "failed script". The Bible was translated into Mende and published in 1959, in Latin script.
The Latin-based alphabet is: a, b, d, e, ɛ, f, g, gb, h, i, j, k, kp, l, m, n, ny, o, ɔ, p, s, t, u, v, w, y.
Mende has seven vowels: a, e, ɛ, i, o, ɔ, u.
Media
Film
Mende was used extensively in the films Amistad and Blood Diamond and was the subject of the documentary film The Language You Cry In about the connections between the Gullah people of present-day Georgia and their ancestors from Sierra Leone, beginning with the work of Lorenzo Dow Turner who documented Gullah memories of the Mende language.
Oral literature
In 1908, F.W.H. Migeod, a British civil servant, published The Mende Language, which contains 17 stories in Mende with facing-text English translations, along with 13 Mende songs (lyrics only, no music).
Ralph Eberl-Elber, an Austrian ethnologist, published two Mende tales with English translations as he heard them in Sierra Leone in the 1935.
The American anthropologist Marion Dusser de Barenne Kilson worked with Mende storytellers in Sierra Leone as a graduate student in 1959 and 1960 (her husband, the political scientist Martin Kilson, was also conducting research in Sierra Leone at the time). Marion Kilson then returned to Sierra Leone in 1972 for further research and in 1976 she published Royal Antelope and Spider: West African Mende Tales, which contains 100 Mende folktales in both the original Mende and in English translation. The introduction provides an overview of Mende culture along with detailed information about Mende storytelling traditions.
For Mende proverbs in Mende and English translation, see "Some Mεnde Proverbs," an article published by M. Mary Senior in 1947.
Sample text
Numuvuisia Kpɛlɛɛ ta ti le tɛ yɛ nduwɔ ya hu, tao ti nuvuu yei kɛɛ ti lɔnyi maa hɛwungɔ. Kiiya kɛɛ hindaluahu gɔɔla a yɛlɔ ti hun. Fale mahoungɔ ti ti nyɔnyɔhu hoi kia ndeegaa.
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
References
References
- Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh
- Sengova, Joko. (1987). "The national languages of Sierra Leone: A decade of policy experimentation". Africa.
- Migeod, F. W. 1908. [https://archive.org/details/mendelanguagecon00migeuoft ''The Mende language'']. London
- Crosby, Kenneth. 1944. ''An Introduction to the Study of Mende''. Cambridge University Press.
- Murphy, Patricia. (1972-09-24). "Meeting of science, society". The Los Angeles Times.
- Dwyer, David James. (1969). "Consonant Mutation in Mende". Michigan State University.
- Unseth, Peter. (2011). "The Success–Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts". Oxford University Press.
- Tuchscherer, Konrad. (1995). "African Script and Scripture: The History of the Kikakui (Mende) Writing System for Bible Translations". African Languages and Cultures.
- [http://aboutworldlanguages.com/mende Coble, Scott. n.d. "Mende." AboutWorldLanguages.com] (accessed 8 October 2014)
- "Langue : mende".
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=a1AHAQAAIAAJ A Mende Orthography Workshop: Ministry of Education, Freetown, January 21-25, 1980]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=fFK5AAAAIAAJ Pemagbi, Joe. 1991. "A guide to Mende orthography." SLADEA.]
- "THE LANGUAGE YOU CRY IN".
- "F. W. H. Migeod".
- Migeod, Frederick William Hugh (1908). ''[https://archive.org/details/mendelanguageco02migegoog/page/n206/mode/2up?view=theater The Mende Language, Containing Useful Phrases, Elementary Grammar, Short Vocabularies, Reading Materials.]'' pp. 200-271.
- "Ralph Eberl-EIber".
- Eberl-Elber, Ralph. (1939). "Two Mende Tales". Cambridge University Press.
- Kilson, Marion (1976). ''[https://archive.org/details/royalantelopespi0000unse Royal Antelope and Spider: West African Mende Tales.]''
- (25 March 2022). ["Reader's Guide to African Folktales at the Internet Archive"](https://archive.org/stream/guideafricafolktales/guideafricafolktales_djvu.txt}}{{Creative Commons text attribution notice).
- Senior, M. Mary. (1947). "Some Mεnde Proverbs". [Cambridge University Press, International African Institute].
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