Solomana Kante Explained

Solomana Kanté (also written as Sùlemáana Kántε, Souleymane Kanté or Sulemaana Kantè;, 1922 – November 23, 1987) was a Guinean writer, neographer, and educator,^[1] best known as the inventor of the N'Ko alphabet for the Manding language varieties of Africa.

Kanté created N'Ko, a modern script for, as he saw it,^[2] the Manding language in 1949 after five years of experimentation with various writing systems.^[3] The script first came into use in Kankan, Guinea and was disseminated from there into other Manding-speaking parts of West Africa.

Sources

• Conrad, David C. (2001). "Reconstructing Oral Tradition: Souleymane Kanté’s Approach to Writing Mande History". Mande Studies 3, 147–200.
• Kaba, Diaka Laye (1992). "Souleymane Kanté: l’inventeur de l’alphabet N’ko". L’Educateur: Trimestriel Pédagogique des Enseignants de Guinée 11–12, 33
• Kanté, Bourama (1996). "Souvenir de Kanté Souleymane". Somoya Sila: Journal Culturel de l'Association ICRA-N'KO 19.
• Kanté, Souleymane (1961). "Alphabet de la langue N’ko: ‘N’ko sebesun’." In Méthode pratique d’écriture N’ko. Kankan, reprinted by Mamady Keita (1995), Siguiri.
• Vydrine, Valentin, ed. (2001). "Lettres de Souleymane Kanté et Maurice Houis". Mande Studies 3, 133–146.

Notes and References

1. Book: Vydrin, Valentin. Manding-English Dictionary : (Maninka, Bamana). 1999. 9780993996931. Lac-Beauport. 8. 905517929. Valentin Vydrin.
2. Donaldson . Coleman . 2017-01-01 . Orthography, Standardization, and Register: The Case of Manding . In P. Lane, J. Costa, & H. De Korne (Eds.), Standardizing Minority Languages: Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery (Pp. 175–199). New York, NY: Routledge.. 2 .
3. Donaldson. Coleman. 2020. The Role of Islam, Ajami writings, and educational reform in Sulemaana Kantè's N'ko. African Studies Review. 63. 3. en. 462–486. 10.1017/asr.2019.59. 0002-0206. free.