Southwestern Mande languages

Southwestern Mande
Geographic distribution	Sierra Leone,Guinea,Liberia
Linguistic classification	Niger–Congo Mande Western Mande Southwestern Mande
Subdivisions	Kpelle Loma-Mende
Glottolog	sout2842

TheSouthwestern Mande languagesare a branch of theMandelanguages spoken inSierra Leone,Guinea,andLiberia.There are around 2.8 million total speakers. The largest languages by far areMendeof Sierra Leone, with 1.4 million, andKpelleof Liberia and Guinea, with 1.2 million.

Member languages

• Mende,spoken by 1.4 million in theSouthernandEasternprovinces,Sierra Leone
• Loko,spoken by around 140,000 predominantly inBombaliandPort Lokodistricts, Sierra Leone.
• Kpelle,spoken by around 1.2 million in centralLiberiaandGuinée forestière,Guinea.
• Loma,or Toma, spoken by around 300,000 inGuineaandLiberia.
• Zialo,once classified as adialectof Loma, spoken by around 25,000 aroundMacentaandGuéckédougou,Guinea.
• Gbandi,spoken by around 100,000 inLiberia.

Classification

A likely internal classification is as follows.

Southwestern Mande	Mende–Loma Looma Mende–Bandi Bandi–Zialo Mɛnde–Loko Kpɛllɛ