N'Ko language

N'Ko[lower-alpha 1] (ߒߞߏ) is a standardized unified koiné form of several Manding languages written in the N'Ko alphabet. It is used in Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and some other West African countries, primarily, but not exclusively in written form, whereas in actual speech the different Manding varieties are used: Maninka, Bambara, Dyula and others.

It is a literary register with a prescriptive grammar known as kángbɛ ("clear language") codified by Solomana Kante, with the màninkamóri variety, spoken in Kante's native Kankan region, serving as the mediating compromise dialect.[1][2][3][4]

Valentin Vydrin in 1999[5] and Coleman Donaldson in 2019[3] indicated that the popularity of writing Manding languages in the standardized N'Ko form is growing. This standardized written form is increasingly used for literacy education among the speakers of different varieties.[6] It is also commonly used in electronic communication.[7]

The standard strives to represent all Manding languages in a way that attempts to show a common "proto-Manding" phonology and the words' etymology, including when the actual pronunciation in modern spoken varieties is significantly different. For example, there is at least one such convention, for representing velars between vowels: [g], [k], [ɣ], [x] or zero may be pronounced, but the spelling will be the same. For example, the word for "name" in Bambara is [tɔgɔ] and in Maninka it is [tɔɔ], but the standard written N'Ko form is ߕߐ߮ (/tô/). In written communication each person will write it a single unified way using the N'Ko script, and yet read and pronounce it as in their own linguistic variety.