Mande · ISO 639-3 men
Mende (Sierra Leone) Language Mɛnde
Mende (Sierra Leone) is a Mande language spoken by about 1.8 million people in 2 countries. It is written in the Latin and Mende scripts.
Where Mende (Sierra Leone) is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Mende (Sierra Leone)
Language family
- Mande
- Western Mande
- Manding-Kpelle
- Southwest Mande
- Mende-Loma
- Mende-Bandi
- Mende-Loko
- Mende (Sierra Leone)
Writing system
Latin and Mende scripts
Related languages
About the Mende (Sierra Leone) language
Mende (Sierra Leone) (Mɛnde) is spoken by about 1.8 million people, which makes it the 336th most spoken language in the world — just behind Northern Luri (1.8 million) and ahead of Rohingya (1.8 million). It belongs to the Mande language family and, more precisely, to the Mende-Loko group within the Manding-Kpelle branch.
Where is Mende (Sierra Leone) spoken?
Mende (Sierra Leone) is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Sierra Leone (2.5 million) and Liberia (92,433).
Share of the population that speaks Mende (Sierra Leone): Sierra Leone 27% (2.5 million) and Liberia 1.7% (92,433).
Mende (Sierra Leone) is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Mende (Sierra Leone) is written in the Latin and Mende scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Bambara, Eastern Maninkakan, Sankaran Maninka, Dyula, Susu, Mandinka and 1 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 men.
Frequently asked questions about Mende (Sierra Leone)
How many people speak Mende (Sierra Leone)?
Where is Mende (Sierra Leone) spoken?
What language family does Mende (Sierra Leone) belong to?
What is Mende (Sierra Leone) called in Mende (Sierra Leone)?
Is Mende (Sierra Leone) an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.