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13-451: Biafada is heavily influenced by Mandinka . Variants on the name include Beafada, Bedfola, Biafar, Bidyola, Dfola, Fada . This article about Atlantic languages is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Guinea-Bissau -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mandinka language The Mandinka language ( Mandi'nka kango ; Ajami : مَانْدِينْكَا كَانْجَوْ ), or Mandingo ,

26-541: A final glottal stop, which is not noted in the Latin script. The letter ŋ of the Latin script is often indicated with vowel signs in the Arabic script; see below. ه (h) may also be used to indicate a final glottal stop , which is not noted in the Latin script. The letter ŋ of the Latin script is often indicated with vowel signs in the Arabic script; see below. The vowels correspond as follows (diacritics are placed over or under

39-428: A o u/ . All may be long or short. There are no nasal vowels ; instead, there is a coda consonant /ŋ/. Long vowels are written double: aa , ee , ii , oo , uu . The following table gives the consonants in the Latin orthography, and their IPA equivalent when they differ. Syllabic nasals occur, such as in nnààm 'yes!' (response), ŋte "I, me". Word-initial mb, nd, ndy, ng occur but are not particularly common; it

52-489: A preceding long high vowel ( ii > io , uu > uo ; ee optionally > either eo or ee ) or assimilates itself ( aa remains aa ) leaving only its tone: In Senegal and Gambia, Mandinka is approaching a system of pitch accent under the influence of local non-tonal languages such as Wolof , Serer , and Jola . The tonal system remains more robust in the Eastern and Southern Mandinka dialects (Tilibo) spoken in

65-772: Is a Mande language spoken by the Mandinka people of Guinea , northern Guinea-Bissau , the Casamance region of Senegal , and in The Gambia where it is one of the principal languages. Mandinka belongs to the Manding branch of Mande and is similar to Bambara and Maninka/Malinké but with only 5 instead of 7 vowels. The variety spoken in The Gambia and Senegal borders on a pitch accent due to its proximity with non-tonal neighboring languages like Wolof . Mandinka

78-438: Is here represented by the variety spoken in Casamance . There is little dialectical diversity. Mandinka has two tones, high and low. Unmodified nouns are either high tone on all syllables or low tone on all syllables. The definite suffix -o takes a low tone on high-tone nouns and a falling tone on low-tone nouns. It also assimilates any preceding short vowel, resulting in a long /oo/ with either low or falling tone. It shortens

91-487: Is not clear whether they should be considered syllabic nasals or additional consonants. Consonants may be geminated in the middles of words (at least /pp, cc, jj, kk, ll, mm, nn, ññ/). The only other consonant found at the ends of syllables in native words is /ŋ/ . It assimilates to the following consonant: /ns, nc, mb/ etc. Syllable-final /r/ and /s/ are found in French loans (e.g. /kùrtù/ "pants"). The Latin alphabet and

104-603: Is used in particular for the writing of the Wolof language , spoken mostly in Senegal , although it is more often written in the Latin alphabet and to a lesser extent in the Arabic (Wolofal) alphabet . It is written from right to left , and distinguishes letter case . The consonants are written as standalone letters and are not joined as in Arabic. There is a mark above some letters to show pre-nasalization. The letter labeled alif

117-431: Is used like its counterpart in Arabic, coming before an initial vowel. Extra to the standard Wolof set is /ħ/, available for Arabic loan words. Lacking is /q/, but /k/ may suffice for that. Also lacking is /nk/, but that may easily be formed with a mark above, like /mb/ etc. In Garay, uppercase letters are distinguished from lowercase letters by a swash added to one side or the other of the letter. Each sentence begins with

130-585: The Arabic alphabet are widely used for Mandinka; the former is official, but the latter is more widely used and older. In addition, the pan- Manding writing system, the N'Ko script , invented in 1949, is often used in Guinea-Bissau, north east Guinea, and in bordering communities in Ivory Coast and Mali. Additionally, the Garay alphabet , originally developed for Wolof, has seen some limited use. In

143-544: The Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Eastern Senegal. These conservative dialects merge into other conservative Manding languages like Maninka , the once official language of the Mali Empire , Bambara , and Susu . All of these preserve the typical West African terraced downstep in tonality that is only lightly alluded to in the Western Mandinka dialects spoken in much of Gambia and Senegal. Vowel qualities are /i e

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156-601: The Latin script, c represents /t͡ʃ/ , ŋ /ŋ/ , and ñ /ɲ/ ; the letters v, x, z, and q are not used. Vowels are as in Spanish or Italian and are doubled to indicate length or distinguish words that are otherwise homophones. The Arabic script uses no extra letters (apart from, rarely, an extra vowel mark for e ), but some of the letters are pronounced differently from in Arabic. The Latin and Arabic consonants correspond as follows: Letters in italics are not normally used in native Mandinka words. ه (h) may also be used to indicate

169-486: The consonant in Arabic): In addition, a small Arabic 2 (۲) may be used to indicate reduplication , and the hamza may be used as in Arabic to indicate glottal stops more precisely. Garay alphabet The Garay alphabet was designed in 1961, as a transcription system "[marrying] African sociolinguistic characteristics" according to its inventor, Assane Faye . This alphabet has 25 consonants and 14 vowels. It

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