Mende
Sign in to saveMende language, natively spoken in Liberia and Sierra-Leone
Key facts
- Native to
- Sierra Leone , Liberia , Guinea
- Region
- South central Sierra Leone
- Ethnicity
- Mende people
- Native speakers
- 2.5 million (2020–2021)
- Language family
- Niger–Congo ? Mande Western Southwestern Mende–Loma Mende–Bandi Mende–Loko Mende
- Dialects
- Ko Kpa Sewawa Wanjama
- Writing system
- Latin , Mende Kikakui script
- Iso 639 2
- men
- Iso 639 3
- men
- Glottolog
- mend1266
via Wikipedia infobox
~3 min read
Article
Mende /ˈmɛndi/ (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.