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ߒߞߏ

Manden mirindi lakunun gna kuda

N'Ko MALI

The N'Ko and its SPEAKERS

karan loku dinkira

N'Ko Jamana lu keyoro

Guinée

Mali

Côte d’Ivoire

Gambie

Burkina-Faso

Sierra Leone

Libéria

Sénégal

Guinée Bisau

The N'Ko and its SPEAKERS

THE MANDEN TERRITORY

The indeterminate states of the Manden territory are located between the woodland at the South West and the North West of the sub-Sahara desert in West Africa. The populations in this area are predominantly speakers of the N'KO, the four branches of Mandika, dialects.

       The N'KO folk have settled in the following nine Weste African countries namely Mali, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina-Faso, the Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Bisau, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In the republic of Niger and the northern part of Ghana, frontier to Burkina, there is a group of small ethnic communities of the Jula, one of the four branches of Mandenkang. In the republic of Mouritania too there are ethnic groups sharing not only the other cultural norms but also (Mandenkakang) as their first language used in everyday communications.

       All the areas of Manden where the speakers of N'ko are the main settlersbear a special patronymic, name aimed to identify the collective name of the folk living in certain area.  The Southern part of the Manden traditionally has belonged to the Jula, the Northern region is inhibit by the Bamana, the West by the Manika and the North West has been occupied by Kasong and Mandingo 

       These well-known names of the following dialects; Maninkakang = languageof Maninka) Bamanakang = Languageof Bamana), Kasonkakang = (language of Kasongka), Julakang = (language of Jula) and Tabusikang = (language of Tabusi) have useful function in the Manden societies not only as an emblem of the dialects but also as zone and provincial identities.

        Those whose maternal dialect is Manikakang, have believed in the cultural awareness that the Mandinko dialect is a devising part from Manika, those with the Bamana Dialect as their maternal language, deducing that both the Jula and Manika dialects were the offspring of the Bamana dialects which they consider to be the prototype of all the four branches of the N'KO language.

        The peoples, other settlers in the area, who don’t have any of these tongues (Bamara, Jula, Mandinko and Manika) as a maternal language, speak N'KO, when they communicate with their Mandenka neighbours. 

 


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