Mandinka is here represented by the variety spoken in
Casamance. There is little dialectical diversity.
Tone Mandinka has two tones, high and low. Unmodified nouns are either high tone on all syllables or low tone on all syllables. The definite suffix
-o takes a low tone on high-tone nouns and a falling tone on low-tone nouns. It also assimilates any preceding short vowel, resulting in a long /oo/ with either low or falling tone. It shortens a preceding long high vowel (
ii >
io,
uu >
uo;
ee optionally > either
eo or
ee) or assimilates itself (
aa remains
aa) leaving only its tone: :/búŋ/ 'a room' > /búŋò/ 'the room' :/tèŋ/ 'a palm tree' > /tèŋô/ 'the palm tree' :/kídí/ 'a gun' > /kídòò/ 'the gun' :/kòrdàà/ 'a house' > /kòrdáà/ 'the house' In Senegal and Gambia, Mandinka is approaching a system of
pitch accent under the influence of local non-tonal languages such as
Wolof,
Serer, and
Jola. The tonal system remains more robust in the Eastern and Southern Mandinka dialects (Tilibo) spoken in the Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Eastern Senegal. These conservative dialects merge into other conservative Manding languages like
Maninka, the once official language of the
Mali Empire,
Bambara, and
Susu. All of these preserve the typical West African terraced downstep in tonality that is only lightly alluded to in the Western Mandinka dialects spoken in much of Gambia and Senegal.
Vowels Vowel qualities are . All may be long or short. There are no
nasal vowels; instead, there is a coda consonant /ŋ/. Long vowels are written double:
aa,
ee,
ii,
oo,
uu.
Consonants The following table gives the consonants in the Latin orthography, and their IPA equivalent when they differ. Syllabic nasals occur, such as in
nnààm 'yes!' (response),
ŋte "I, me". Word-initial
mb, nd, ndy, ng occur but are not particularly common; it is not clear whether they should be considered syllabic nasals or additional consonants. Consonants may be geminated in the middles of words (at least /pp, tʃtʃ, dʒdʒ, kk, ll, mm, nn, ɲɲ/). The only other consonant found at the ends of syllables in native words is , which assimilates to the following consonant, e.g. /ŋs, ŋtʃ, ŋb/ → [ns, ɲtʃ, mb]. Syllable-final /r/ and /s/ are found in French loans (e.g. /kùrtù/ 'pants'). ==Orthography==