Southwestern Mande languages
Appearance
Southwestern Mande | |
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Geographic distribution | Sierra Leone,Guinea,Liberia |
Linguistic classification | Niger–Congo
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Subdivisions |
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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
[edit]- 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
[edit]A likely internal classification is as follows.[1]
References
[edit]- ^Kastenholz, Raimund (1996).Sprachgeschichte im West-Mande: Methoden und Rekonstruktionen.Köln: Köppe. p. 281.ISBN3896450719.OCLC42295840.