Languages of Guinea | |
---|---|
Official | French |
National | Fula, Maninka, Susu, Kissi, Kpelle (also known in French as Guerzé), Loma |
Vernacular | African French |
Foreign | English |
Signed | American Sign Language (Francophone African Sign Language) |
Keyboard layout | |
interethnic | French, Fula |
The Republic of Guinea is a multilingual country, with over 40 languages spoken. The official language is French.
Several indigenous languages have been given the status of national languages: Fula (or Pular); Malinké (or Maninka); Susu; Kissi; Kpelle (also known in French as Guerzé) and Loma.
Guinea is a Francophone country, where, as of 2024, 4,11 million (27.83%) out of 14.76 million people speak French. [1]
French is the language of state and of official institutions. It is used as a second language by 15% to 25% of the population, and as a first language by a negligible portion of the population. [2] At the end of the Ahmed Sékou Touré regime, French was the only language used in business and schools.
Fula (34.6%) is mostly spoken in Middle Guinea, where the major city is Labé. It dominates in the Labé and Mamou regions where it is spoken by 94.5% and 92.4% of the populations respectively. [3]
Malinké (24.9%) is mostly spoken in Upper Guinea, where Kankan is the major city. It dominates the Kankan Region where it is spoken by 87.1% of the population. [3] The Kankan variety of the language was used by Solomana Kante for the development of N'Ko, a standardized unified written Manding language, which is increasingly used in literacy education and publishing books and newspapers in Guinea and neighboring countries. [4] [5]
Susu (17.7%) is mostly spoken in Guinée maritime, where the capital is Conakry. [6] It dominates the Kindia Region where it is spoken by 54.9% of the population and the plurality (37%) of Conakry also speaks it. [3]
Koniaka (4.5%), Kissi (4.1%) and Kpelle (4%) are spoken in Guinée Forestière. More specifically, Kpelle is spoken in Nzérékoré and Yomou. Kissi is spoken in Guéckédou and Kissidougou. Kono is a language used in the south of Guinea, mostly in Lola. [3]
According to a report by Alpha Mamadou Diallo, [7] the first language of inhabitants of the city of Conakry in decreasing order was: pular 42%, susu 20%, maninka with koniaka 19%, Kissi 4%, Guerzé 4%, French 2% and Toma 2%.
Dyula is a language of the Mande language family spoken mainly in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Mali, and also in some other countries, including Ghana, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. It is one of the Manding languages and is most closely related to Bambara, being mutually intelligible with Bambara as well as Malinke. It is a trade language in West Africa and is spoken by millions of people, either as a first or second language. Similar to the other Mande languages, it uses tones. It may be written in the Latin, Arabic or N'Ko scripts.
Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sierra Leone and Liberia to the south. It is sometimes referred to as Guinea-Conakry, after its capital Conakry, to distinguish it from other territories in the eponymous region, such as Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. Guinea has a population of 14 million and an area of 245,857 square kilometres (94,926 sq mi).
Demographics of Guinea describes the condition and overview of Guinea's peoples. Demographic topics include basic education, health, and population statistics as well as identified racial and religious affiliations.
Conakry is the capital and largest city of Guinea. A port city, it serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea. Its population as of the 2014 Guinea census was 1,660,973.
Guinea is a West African nation, composed of several ethnic groups. Among its most widely known musicians is Mory Kanté - 10 Cola Nuts saw major mainstream success in both Guinea and Mali while "Yeke Yeke", a single from Mory Kanté à Paris, was a European success in 1988.
NKo (ߒߞߏ), also spelled N'Ko, is an alphabetic script devised by Solomana Kanté in 1949, as a modern writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa. The term NKo, which means I say in all Manding languages, is also used for the Manding literary standard written in the NKo script.
The Manding languages are a dialect continuum within the Niger-Congo family spoken in West Africa. Varieties of Manding are generally considered to be mutually intelligible – dependent on exposure or familiarity with dialects between speakers – and spoken by 9.1 million people in the countries Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali, Liberia, Ivory Coast and The Gambia. Their best-known members are Mandinka or Mandingo, the principal language of The Gambia; Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali; Maninka or Malinké, a major language of Guinea and Mali; and Jula, a trade language of Ivory Coast and western Burkina Faso. Manding is part of the larger Mandé family of languages.
Cellou Dalein Diallo is a Guinean economist and politician who was Prime Minister of Guinea from 2004 to 2006. Previously he held a succession of ministerial posts in the government from 1996 to 2004. Currently he is President of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), an opposition party. He was a candidate in the 2020 Guinean presidential election but lost to incumbent Alpha Condé.
Fouta Djallon is a highland region in the center of Guinea, roughly corresponding with Middle Guinea, in West Africa.
Kindia is the fourth largest city in Guinea, located about 85 miles (137 km) northeast of the nation's capital, Conakry. Its estimated population in 2008 was 181,126. Kindia serves as the capital and largest city of Kindia Prefecture and Kindia Region. It also functions as a sub-prefecture of Guinea.
Nzérékoré is the second-largest city in Guinea by population after the capital, Conakry, and the largest city in the Guinée forestière region of southeastern Guinea. The city is the capital of Nzérékoré Prefecture. Nzérékoré is a commercial and economic center and lies approximately 354 mi (570 km) southeast of Conakry.
Solomana Kanté was a Guinean writer, neographer, and educator, best known as the inventor of the N'Ko alphabet for the Manding language varieties of Africa.
Kouroussa or Kurussa is a town located in northeastern Guinea, and is the capital of Kouroussa Prefecture. As of 2014 it had a population of 39,611 people. A trade center and river port from at least the time of the Mali Empire, Kouroussa has long relied upon its position near the upstream limit of navigation of the Niger River to make it an important crossroads for people and goods moving between the Guinea coast and the states of the western Soudan and Niger River valley. The town and surrounding area is a center of Malinke culture, and is known for its Djembe drumming tradition.
Maninka, or more precisely Eastern Maninka, is the name of several closely related languages and dialects of the southeastern Manding subgroup of the Mande language family. It is the mother tongue of the Malinké people in Guinea, where it is spoken by 3.1 million people and is the main language in the Upper Guinea region, and in Mali, where the closely related Bambara is a national language, as well as in Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, where it has no official status. It was the language of court and government during the Mali Empire.
Pita , is a town in the Fouta Djallon highlands of Guinea. It is the capital and largest urban center of the Pita Prefecture.
The Fula language is written primarily in the Latin script, but in some areas is still written in an older Arabic script called the Ajami script or in the recently invented Adlam script.
Guinean Americans are an ethnic group of Americans of Guinean descent. According to estimates by 2000 US Census, there were 3,016 people who identified Guinean as one of their two top ancestry identities. However, in November 2010 the New York Times estimated that as many 10,000 Guineans and Guinean Americans reside in New York City alone.
NKo (ߒߞߏ) is a standardized unified koiné form of several Manding languages written in the NKo alphabet. It is used in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and some other West African countries, primarily, but not exclusively, in written form, whereas in speech the different varieties of Manding are used: Maninka, Bambara, Dyula and others.
Diaka Camara is a Guinean producer, journalist, animator and entrepreneur. She leads CBC Worldwide COM & PROD which produces ''Le Mannequin'', the first TV-Reality show in francophone West Africa.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)