Temne (also ''Themne, Timne''; ) 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 The Western Area or Freetown Peninsula (formerly the Colony of Sierra Leone) is one of five principal divisions of Sierra Leone. It comprises the oldest city and national capital Freetown and its surrounding towns and countryside. It covers an ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

. Temne people can be found in a number of other

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n countries as well, including

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

. Some Temnes have also migrated beyond West Africa seeking educational and professional opportunities, especially in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

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.

Consonants

Vowels

Tones

Temne has two tones: high and low.

Writing

The alphabet of Temne includes the following characters and digraphs: Earlier, Ȧȧ was used instead of Ʌʌ.

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

References

Bibliography

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External links

Temne Words and PhrasesGrammar of the Temne language, 1864 – Rev. C. F. SchlenkerCIA Sierra Leone filePanAfrican L10n page on TemneListening example: Kassirie StoriesOLAC resources in and about the Timne languageTemne story "Mr. Spider and the Rotten Skin" with English rough translationGlottolog page for TimnePeace Corps Sierra Leone Temne Language ManualLets Learn Thaymneh (Temne)
{{Authority control Mel languages Languages of Sierra Leone