Resources

This is a general resources page for anyone that is looking to learn Bambara, Jula ("dioula" in French), Maninka ("malinké" in French) or Mandinka—the four major varieties of Manding.

What is Manding?

From a linguistic perspective, the languages commonly known as Bambara, Jula or Malinké (Bamanankan, Julakan and Maninkakan respectively) are actually the Eastern varieties within a larger language-dialect continuum known as Manding that spans from Senegal to Burkina Faso in West Africa.

While speakers of Manding varieties typically do not refer to it as such, the label is useful in the sense that Bambara, Jula and Malinké remain mutually intelligible and are frequently recognized by native speakers as being different varieties of but one language. The word ‘Manding’ is a Western adaptation of the word Màndén, the name of both a place and former West African polity now commonly referred to as the Mali Empire that at its apogee between the 13th and 15th centuries encompassed much of West Africa and in particular the modern day states of Guinea and Mali.

Given the historical weight of the Mali empire and the spread of the Manding-speaking Muslim trade and religious network, it is of little surprise that major Manding varieties of today (i.e., Malinké in Guinea, Bambara in Mali, and Jula in Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso), are widely used in their respective zones as trade languages between different peoples and language groups.

The Manding language-dialect continuum also encompasses the Western varieties frequently referred to as Mandinka or Mandingo and spoken primarily in the Gambia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and in smaller enclaves in Sierra Leone and Liberia. While clearly related to the Eastern varieties, they are frequently not mutually intelligible with them.

Here’s a running list of resources for learning and investigating Manding that is ugly but hopefully is useful nonetheless.

📚 Books, etc.

Learner's Grammars and Texts [by author]

In Print or Available Online…

• An ka taa’s Basic Bambara Grammar Manual: A virtual book with written chapters, audio flashcards and interactive exercises.

• Bailleul’s Cours pratique de bambara: Great text from Bambara’s premier Western lexicographer of the 20th century.

• [German] Hentschel’s “Bambara für Mali - Wort für Wort”: Small traveler’s introduction to language; sound from a linguistic perspective and marks tone.

• Morales’s “J'apprends le bambara”: Interesting book to use in coordination with a teacher or in a class, but not on your own because there are no grammar explanations within the book itself. There are audio recordings that go along with each dialog. They aren’t the highest quality productions and sometimes read a little bit too slowly, but they can be useful for beginners. The graphic design/layout of the book makes it a little bit hard to use unfortunately.

• Peace Corps Mali’s “Introductory Bambara Language Training Program”: Manual with chapters that each include cultural notes, vocabulary, expressions, grammar and exercises around a single communicative task.

• Peace Corps Mali’s An Introduction to Bambara: [Peace Corps mirror link] Basic introduction with audio files that have been uploaded without any attribution or link to this playlist on YouTube

• Peace Corps Guinea’s “I di an samba, huh?": A Maninka Study Guide for Guinea”

• Sow’s “An ka bamanankan fɔ”: Textbook produced out of Indiana University by the National African Language Resource Center (NALRC). Available with an audio CD. The book favors a “communicative approach” to language learning, which means that grammar explanations play second fiddle to introducing expressions and dialogs. This means the book is rich for picking up sayings appropriate to various events, but it will likely leave a student learning independently a bit lost or overwhelmed. When there are grammar explanations they are a bit over-simplified. Unfortunately, the audio files low-quality and often read in a near monotone voice. In some cases, dialogues are read by a single person, despite having been written with two people in mind. Unfortunately, the book is rife with typos both in the Bambara and the English portions of the text. The graphic design and layout does not make the text easy to navigate. Finally, the print quality of the black and white images in the book is very low.

Harder to find…

• Batienon’s “Cours d’initiation : Dioula”: nice small introduction to the language; produced locally in Burkina Faso; includes a small lexicon.

• Bird (et al.)

  • An ka Bamanankan Kalan: Beginning Bambara (audio available here)

  • An Ka Bamanankan Kalan: Intermediate Bambara (audio available here)

• Dumestre’s “Kó dì?: Cours de dioula”: old text published out of Côte d’Ivoire with beautiful images.

• [German] Kastenholz’s Grundkurs Bambara (Manding) mit Texten

  See also the companion texts:

  • Bambara Lesebuch / Livre de lecture Bambara: Trilingual Bambara-German-French collection of texts written with intermediate learners in mind

  • Bambara Übungsbuch: German language exercise book

• Long & Diomandé’s “Basic Dyula”: with audio (see mirror link here in Indiana University's Recorded Materials Archive)

Children’s Books

Looking for books to expose your child to Manding varieties like Bambara, Jula or Maninka? See the separate write-up that I did.

Online Dictionaries

• An ka taa’s Manding (Bambara/Jula) Dictionary: online, mobile friendly and made by me and Antoine Fenayon — here’s a blog post outlining its features in brief.

• Bamadaba: Bambara-French dictionary adapted from Bailleul’s dictionary (see below) and that complements the Bambara Reference Corpus (see below).

• Malidaba: online Maninka-English/French/Russian dictionary. It’s a rough draft compared to the Bamadaba dictionary, but serviceable. Headwords are in Latin and N’ko script.

• Online Bambara Dictionary: Bambara-English/French dictionary produced by Richard Nci Diarra, a missionary linguist affiliated with SIL. Not mobile-friendly and no search function.

• Niggli’s 2016 SIL “Dioula - French - English Dictionary”

Print Dictionaries

• “Print Dictionaries for Learning Bambara”: A summary blog post summary that includes detailed commentary about the following:

  • Bailleul’s “Dictionnaire bambara-français”: The premiere Bambara language dictionary of the 20th century.

  • Dumestre’s “Dictionnaire bambara-français”: Here’s a brief review of it.

  • Kone’s “Bamanankan Daɲɛfage”: A monolingual Bambara dictionary.

• Vydrin’s Manding-English dictionary: One volume covering A, B, some of D and some other random entries).

  Kantè’s ߒߞߏ ߞߘߐߦߌߘߊߟߊ߲ ߥߟߊ߫ ߝߛߊ߬ߙߌ߬ߟߊ߲ ߤߊߡߌ߲߫ ߞߘߐߝߐߟߊ߲ [The N’ko Dictionary].

• Braconnier’s “Dictionnaire du dioula d'Odienné”: Out of print.

Linguistic Grammars

• Dumestre’s “Grammaire fondamentale du bambara”

• Creissels’s “Le malinké de Kita”

• Kantè’s ߒߞߏ ߞߊ߲ߓߍ ߞߎ߲߬ߝߟߐ [The First Book of N’ko Grammar].

• Kantè’s ߒߞߏ ߞߊ߲ߜߍ ߞߎ߲߬ߓߊߓߊ [The Big Book of N’ko Grammar].

• Vydrin’s “Cours de grammaire bambara”

Apps

• Learn Bambara/Apprendre le bambara [Andoid/iOS ~ English/French]: I wrote the dialogs, vocabulary lists, exercises and grammar notes of this app. Note that the English version does not include the grammar notes. They were never translated from the original in French.

Corpora

• Maninka Reference Corpus: N’ko- and Latin-based texts

• Bambara Reference Corpus

• N’ko Reference Corpus: hosted by SketchEngine

Texts

(👋 Also consult the Literature write-up for additional print texts that are available)

• The An ka taa Lyrics Library: A collection of transcribed and translated Manding language song lyrics.

• Electronic Maninka Library: Latin- and N'ko-based texts

• Electronic Bambara Library: Latin-based texts

• Kurana.net: the N’ko Quran in an interactive website form

• African Ajami Library: includes a collection of Mandinka Ajami texts

  • Mandinka Ajami and Arabic Manuscripts of Casamance Senegal

• African Languages Materials Archive: Includes some texts in Jula, Bamanan etc.

  • ALMA’s original website which includes the same texts but in a different browsing format

• Africa’s Sources of Knowledge: Includes a collection of “Bamanankan” texts in N’ko script and a Mandinka Ajami collection)

  • Mandinka Ajami Documents Collection

• Encyclopédie des Littératures en Langues Africaines: Project led by Ursula Baumgardt

  • Manding literature section: an essay about many of the publications related to Manding oral literature)

  • Manding texts: as of 2020-04-30, this includes a Jula song and a set of Jula folktales all from Kong)

• Julakan.com: A site supported by Christian missionaries based in northern Côte d’Ivoire. Includes some interesting non-religious texts.

• L’histoire de l’âne, en bambara: a short text with synchronized read-along audio and translation in French

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Bambara: A translation of the 1948 United Nations text into Bambara. Author unkown. Not an easy text to read with referring to the original text in English!

• Jeli ASR’s Narration Collections: Open-access audio recordings with time-aligned transcripts and translations (into French). See this page for an introduction, review and sample audio clips.

📹 Video

• Na baro kè: YouTube video series of street-side chats in Manding that are subtitled.

• Basic Bambara: Grammar lectures from introducing Manding grammar through the lens of Bambara

• Learn Maninka: Playlist of grammar lectures/lessons teaching Maninka (AKA “Malinké”) as spoken in Guinea

• Kuma Bakolo: Video series of lectures breaking down and explaining headlines, lyrics and other instances of Manding from the real world.

📻 Radio & Podcasts

• RFI Mandenkan: The Bambara language service of Radio France Internationale.

• VOA Bambara: The Bambara language service of the Voice of America. Some of their shows have their own pages and podcasts:

  • Mali Kura ('New Mali')

  • An ba fo (sic. An b'a fɔ 'We say it')

• Basic Bambara—the podcast!: Six episode introduction to the very basics of Bambara through actual recorded lessons between me, Coleman, and a new Bambara student, Cinzia.

💻 Websites, etc.

[NOTE: Some of this section has been expanded into its own page about Bambara Language News Websites.]

• Kanjamadi: N’ko news website

• VOA Bambara website: Has some short print articles in a French-like orthography

• Wikipedia in N’ko: Formally released on 2019-09-26 out of the N’ko Wikimedia Incubator project.

• Wikipedia in Latin-based Bambara: Almost not worth mentioning given its poor quality and small size. More detail on how this project started is available here.

• VOA Bambara (Facebook): Shares links to audio segments; does live streams of the broadcast news show "Mali Kura"; shares video segments from VOA Bambara reporting

• An Ka So (Facebook): Shares written news posts in Bambara (as well as Soninke) that are often adapted or translated from other sources (normally with references)

• RFI Mandenkan (Facebook): Shares links to RFI Mandenkan audio segments that are available on their website.

• Fakan: A blog-style monolingual Bambara language website active since 2015. Also includes a link to buy a monolingual Bambara dictionary app.

🌎 Maps

• Map of the Manding language continuum: Open-access map that I adapted from other data sources

• SIL's maps of the Manding language and dialect continuum: Mande language family collection that includes maps of Manding as individual dialects as well as a lingua franca

⌨️ Typing

Tutorials, etc.

• How to type in Bambara (with the special characters): Write-up of various options and solutions for writing Bambara/Dioula/Maninka in Latin script.

• How to install Bambara keyboard on Android using Gboard: Specific instructions with screenshots for Android users.

• How to display and type in N’ko: Write up of how to install fonts and keyboards across major device types and operating systems.

Keyboards

• SIL IPA keyboards: what I use for writing Manding’s IPA characters and tones on Mac

• Keyman: common keyboard solution for PCs but also for other platforms for both Latin- and N’ko-based orthography

• Evertype’s N’ko keyboards: Mac; what I use for typing N’ko on my laptop

• JamraPatel’s N’ko desktop keyboards: Mac and PC

• JamraPatel’s “Sebedenwala” N’ko keyboard app: For Android and iOS. What I use to type N’ko on my phone.

• Gboard on Android and iOS: supports Manding’s Latin-based orthography and N’ko orthography, but under the language name of “Bambara”; see my blog write-up for more information

• LLACAN’s West African keyboard for linguists on Android; see the section “Claviers Android”

• Wikipedia’s N’ko Keyboard: For typing N’ko without installing a special keyboard. “It can also be installed on other websites where the webmaster wants people to be able to type in input boxes” according to @aharoni.

Pickers

• r12a’s N’ko character picker

• r12a’s Ajami character picker

• r12a’s Latin-based African language character picker

Fonts

• Doulos SIL: I primarily use Doulos SIL and its compact version for properly rendering the full range of IPA characters and diacritics in Latin-based Manding

• Google Noto Fonts: install the N'ko version so that you can view the script properly on your computer

Other

• N'ko Text Converter: can be used to convert legacy N'ko fonts [before Unicode standardization] to the Unicode standardization AND to transliterate N'ko into a Latin-based script that preserves the tonal diacritics

• Bambara spell checker: can be used with LibreOffice, Firefox etc.

📦 Etc.

• Russian Kunstkamera site on Manding languages

• “Bamanan.org” site of resources from the Centres d'Etudes de Langue (CEL) of the Père blancs missionaries in Faladiè, Mali

• “Mandenkan”: academic journal focused on the Mande language family (of which Manding is but one small piece)

• Mandenkan: Francophone Ivoirian website with options to learn Dioula and/or Bambara online and in-person.

• Mande Studies Association (MANSA): academic association for academic or professional interests in the “Mande” (viz. Manding) region of West Africa

• Mali-pense: website that includes a page dedicated to Bambara with an French translation and adaptation of Bird’s “An ka Bamanankan Kalan” books.

• Assocation Donniyakadi: blog/website of the French Association Donniyakadi (founded by Antoine Fenayon) which has published bilingual children’s books in Bambara. They used to offer Bambara courses in Paris.

• DiLAF Project Dictionaries: des dictionnaires bilingues de langues africaines (dont le bambara) en format XML

• Flore Project: noms d'arbres dans différentes langues du Sahel (dont le bambara)

• Bambara (Manding) “Further Resources” page on the Humboldt University Berlin website

• Afrilangues: French company offering online and in-person Bambara courses

• Memrise sets for Bambara and Maninka; by the user “Bettina29”. Translation are either in German or French.

• Bambara (Langues & Grammaire en [Ile-de] France): Information page with a grammatical sketch and media introducing French-speakers in France to Bambara

• Malinké de Kéniéba: SIL Christian Missionary website with a few PDFs for adults to learn to read in Western Maninka (as opposed to Bambara)

• Mali Magic: A virtual exhibit of Mali’s cultural heritage hosted and curated by Google Arts & Culture. Focused specifically on “Manuscripts, Music, Monuments and Modern Art”, but includes some videos, etc., in Bambara/Manding.

• Resources for Self-Instructional Learners of Less Commonly Taught Languages: A virtual book created in a graduate course the University of Wisconsin that includes a number of rough chapters related to Manding. Spelling is inconsistent.

• Coast Systems: The blog/website of Boyd Kelly. An IT worker who studies Jula in Côte d’Ivoire. He has worked to digitize a number of old Manding language PDFs and texts into a digital format. The website isn’t always the most user-friendly or clear. In some cases, I disagree with his orthographic choices and approach to Jula.

• N’ko Learner: A website with a range of materials and resources for learning to read and write in N’ko. Built by a Gambian student of N’ko.