History of the N'Ko Alphabet and Its Role in Mande Transnational Identity Words As Weapons

In her seminal work Dianne White Oyler discusses the creation of the N'ko alphabet, based on the Maninka language, by Souleymane Kanté (1922-1987) in 1949 in Haute Guinée (Guinea). She carefully documents N'ko's dissemination by a grassroots literacy campaign that started with Kanté and continues to the present and shows how important the language is in the evolution of cultural nationalism of the Mande-speaking people of West Africa, and Kanté's and Nko's relationship to pan-Africanism.Oyler, Dianne White is the author of 'History of the N'Ko Alphabet and Its Role in Mande Transnational Identity Words As Weapons' with ISBN 9780965330879 and ISBN 0965330877.