Temne language

Temne (also Themne, Timne; IPA: [t̪emnɛ]^{[missing the tones]}) is a language of the Mel branch of the Niger–Congo language family, spoken by the Temne people. Temne speakers live mostly in the Northern Province and Western Area, Sierra Leone. Temne people can be found in a number of other West African countries as well, including Guinea. Some Temnes have also migrated beyond West Africa seeking educational and professional opportunities, especially in Great Britain, and the United States.

Temne
KʌThemnɛ
Native to	Sierra Leone, Guinea
Region	Northern Sierra Leone
Ethnicity	Temne
Speakers	L1: 2.0 million (2021)[1] L2: 240,000 (1981)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Mel Temne–Baga Temne
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tem
ISO 639-3	tem
Glottolog	timn1235

Temne[2]
Person	a-temne
Language	ka-temne

Phonology

Temne is a tonal language. Among consonants, Temne distinguishes dental and alveolar, but, unusually, the dental consonants are apical and the alveolar consonants are laminal (and slightly affricated), the opposite of the general pattern, though one found also in the nearby language Limba.^[3][4]

Consonants

Consonants^[5]

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪	t		k
	voiced	b		d		gb
Fricative		f		s	ʃ		h
Affricate					tʃ
Nasal		m		n		ŋ
Trill				r
Lateral				l
Approximant		w			j

Vowels

Temne vowel chart^[5]

Vowels^[5]

	Front	Mid	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ʌ	ɔ
Open		a

Tones

Temne has two tones: high and low.^[5]

Writing

The alphabet of Temne includes the following characters and digraphs:^[4]

a

ʌ

b

d

e

ɛ

ə

f

gb

h

i

k

kp

l

m

n

ŋ

o

ɔ

p

r

s

t

th

u

w

A

Ʌ

B

D

E

Ɛ

Ə

F

Gb

H

I

K

Kp

L

M

N

Ŋ

O

Ɔ

P

R

S

T

Th

U

W

Earlier,^[when?] Ȧȧ was used instead of Ʌʌ.^{[citation needed]}

Oral literature

In 1861, C. F. Schlenker, a missionary of the Church Missionary Society, published a collection of Temne fables and proverbs in Temne with a facing-text English translation.^[6] Schlenker's source was a Temne man living in Port Loko in the late 1840s; Schlenker explains that he was an old man already at that time. The book also contains some of Schlenker's translations from the Bible into Temne.^{[citation needed]}

In 1916 Northcote Thomas published his Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone; Part 2 contains a Temne-English dictionary^[7] and Part 3 contains a grammar of Temne plus 27 stories told in Temne with interlinear English translation.^[8] Many of the stories are about the trickster spider, called panis in Temne; the trickster spider is a popular character in the Temne, Vai, Mende, and Limba storytelling traditions of Sierra Leone.^[9] In addition, Thomas's Specimens of Languages from Sierra Leone^[10] contains tables comparing Temne vocabulary to Kissi and other related languages.