Learn N'Ko Alphabet

About Learn N'Ko Alphabet

This app can help you get to know the N'ko alphabet. Scroll through the letters and study their shapes and sounds. Practice tracing each one until you're familiar-- then quiz yourself on the letters!
N'ko means "I say" in Manding languages. It is written right-to-left, and letters connect to each other in a way that resembles Arabic (but without changing shapes). Also different from Arabic, it is not an Abjad but an alphabet meaning that the vowels are always fully written out. There are also mandatory tone marks that mark vowel length and tone.
N'ko was invented by Solomana Kanté in 1949, as a modern writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa.
Kanté created N'Ko in response to erroneous beliefs that no indigenous African writing system existed, as well as to provide a better way to write Manding languages, which had for centuries been written in predominately in Ajami (Arabic) script, which was not well suited to the tones and other sounds unique to Mandé and common to many West African languages.