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Vai–Kono Languages
The Vai–Kono languages, Vai and Kono, form a branch of the Mande languages spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra .... Extinct Dama language (Sierra Leone), Dama is said to have been similar and thus may have been related. References Mande languages {{mande-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. It has a population of around 5 million and covers an area of . English is the official language, but over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. The country's capital and largest city is Monrovia. Liberia began in the early 19th century as a project of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born black people who faced social and legal oppression in the U.S., along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia. Gradually developing an Americo- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with diverse environments ranging from savanna to rainforests. The country has a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. The capital and largest city is Freetown. The country is divided into five administrative regions, which are subdivided into Districts of Sierra Leone, 16 districts. Sierra Leone is a constitutional republic with a unicameral parliament and a directly elected executive president, president serving a five-year term with a maximum of two terms. The current president is Julius Maada Bio. Sierra Leone is a Secular state, secular nation with Constitution of Sierra Leone, the constitution providing for the separation of state and religion and freedom of conscience (which includes freedom of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niger–Congo Languages
Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic-Congo languages (which share a characteristic noun class system), and possibly several smaller groups of languages that are difficult to classify. If valid, Niger-Congo would be the world's largest in terms of member languages, the third-largest in terms of speakers, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area.Irene Thompson"Niger-Congo Language Family" "aboutworldlanguages", March 2015 It is generally considered to be the world's largest language family in terms of the number of distinct languages, just ahead of Austronesian, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by ''Ethnologue'' is 1,540. If valid, it would be the third-largest language family in the world by number of native speakers, comprising around 700 million people as of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mande Languages
The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé peoples and include Maninka, Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Kpelle, Dioula, Bozo, Mende, Susu, and Vai. There are "60 to 75 languages spoken by 30 to 40 million people", chiefly in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ivory Coast, and also in northwestern Nigeria and northern Benin. The Mande languages show lexical similarities with the Atlantic–Congo language family, and the two have been classified together as a Niger–Congo language family since the 1950s. However, the Mande languages lack the noun-class morphology that is the primary identifying feature of the Atlantic–Congo languages. Without the help of that feature, a demonstration of the validity of Niger–Congo will require reconstructing both Proto-Mande and Proto-Atlantic–Congo. Until that work is done, linguists have increasingly decided to treat Mande and Atlantic–Cong ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vai Language
The Vai language, also called Vy or Gallinas, is a Mande language spoken by the Vai people, roughly 104,000 in Liberia, and by smaller populations, some 15,500, in Sierra Leone. Writing system Vai is noteworthy for being one of the few African languages to have a writing system that is not based on the Latin script, Latin or Arabic script. This Vai script is a syllabary invented by Momolu Duwalu Bukele around 1833, although dates as early as 1815 have been alleged. The existence of Vai was reported in 1834 by American missionaries in the ''Missionary Herald'' of the ABCFM and independently by Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, a Sierra Leone agent of the Church Missionary Society of London. The Vai script was used to print the New Testament in the Vai language, dedicated in 2003. Phonology Vai is a tonal language and has 11 vowels and 31 consonants, which are tabulated below. Vowels Consonants and occur only in recent loanwords. See also * '' A Grammar of Vai'' * Vai sylla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kono Language (Sierra Leone)
The Kono language (Kɔnɔ) is a language spoken in Sierra Leone by the Kono people. The Kono District Kono District is a district in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Its capital and largest city is Koidu, Koidu Town. Motema is the second most populous city in the district. The other major towns in the district include Yengema, Tombodu, J ... is situated in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone and contains 14 chiefdoms, each headed by a Paramount Chief. The language varies slightly between chiefdoms. References Sources *Chiefdom Map of Sierra Leone: OCHA Humanitarian Information Centre and Sierra Leone Information Service, 2001 Mande languages Languages of Sierra Leone {{Mande-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dama Language (Sierra Leone)
Dama is an extinct language of Sierra Leone. It was replaced by Mende language, Mende. Based on a few remembered words and toponyms, Dalby (1963) believed it to be a Northern Mande language The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé peoples and include Maninka, Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Kpelle, Dioula, Bozo, Mende, Susu, and Vai. There are "60 to 75 languages spoken by 30 to 40 million ..., similar to Kono and Vai, but ''Glottolog'' leaves it unclassified. References Languages of Sierra Leone Unclassified languages of Africa Extinct languages of Africa Mande languages {{Mande-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |