More often spelled N'Ko, this Unicode code block supports the Manden (or Manding) language, in the Mandenkan language group, spoken primarily in West Africa. The script was devised by Solomana Kante in 1949. There are an estimated 20 million Mandenkan speakers.

The major dialects of the Manden language are Bamanan, Jula, Maninka, and Mandinka. There is a common, literary dialect called Kangbe which is often used when speakers of these different dialects talk to each other.

The N’Ko script is a phonetic language, written from right to left. It has seven vowels, each of which can bear one of seven diacritical marks that modify the tone of the vowel as well as an optional diacritical mark that indicates nasalization. N’Ko has 19 consonants and two abstract consonants, U+07E0 nko letter na woloso and U+07E7 nko letter nya woloso, which indicate original consonants modofoed by a preceding nasal, either word-internally or across word boundaries.

For further research, see http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/ch13.pdf and http://www.nkoinstitute.com/


Unicode's NKo code block reserves the 64 code points from U+07C0 to U+07FF, of which 59 are currently assigned.

Thaana <-- NKo --> Devanagari

All the characters in this code block were added in Unicode 5.0

Number of characters in each General Category :

Letter, Modifier       Lm :  3
Letter, Other          Lo : 33
Mark, Non-Spacing      Mn :  9
Number, Decimal Digit  Nd : 10
Punctuation, Other     Po :  3
Symbol, Other          So :  1

Number of characters in each Bidirectional Category :

Right To Left       R : 46
Non Spacing Mark  NSM :  9
Other Neutral      ON :  4

The columns below should be interpreted as :

  1. The Unicode code for the character
  2. The character in question
  3. The Unicode name for the character
  4. The Unicode General Category for the character
  5. The Unicode Bidirectional Category for the character

If the characters below show up poorly, or not at all, see Unicode Support for possible solutions.

 

NKo

     Digits

U+07C0   ߀   nko digit zero Nd R
U+07C1   ߁   nko digit one Nd R
U+07C2   ߂   nko digit two Nd R
U+07C3   ߃   nko digit three Nd R
U+07C4   ߄   nko digit four Nd R
U+07C5   ߅   nko digit five Nd R
U+07C6   ߆   nko digit six Nd R
U+07C7   ߇   nko digit seven Nd R
U+07C8   ߈   nko digit eight Nd R
U+07C9   ߉   nko digit nine Nd R

     Letters

U+07CA   ߊ   nko letter A Lo R
U+07CB   ߋ   nko letter ee Lo R
U+07CC   ߌ   nko letter I Lo R
U+07CD   ߍ   nko letter E Lo R
U+07CE   ߎ   nko letter U Lo R
U+07CF   ߏ   nko letter oo Lo R
U+07D0   ߐ   nko letter O Lo R
U+07D1   ߑ   nko letter dagbasinna Lo R
U+07D2   ߒ   nko letter N Lo R
U+07D3   ߓ   nko letter ba Lo R
U+07D4   ߔ   nko letter pa Lo R
U+07D5   ߕ   nko letter ta Lo R
U+07D6   ߖ   nko letter ja Lo R
U+07D7   ߗ   nko letter cha Lo R
U+07D8   ߘ   nko letter da Lo R
U+07D9   ߙ   nko letter ra Lo R
U+07DA   ߚ   nko letter rra Lo R
U+07DB   ߛ   nko letter sa Lo R
U+07DC   ߜ   nko letter gba Lo R
U+07DD   ߝ   nko letter fa Lo R
U+07DE   ߞ   nko letter ka Lo R
U+07DF   ߟ   nko letter la Lo R
U+07E0   ߠ   nko letter na woloso Lo R
U+07E1   ߡ   nko letter ma Lo R
U+07E2   ߢ   nko letter nya Lo R
U+07E3   ߣ   nko letter na Lo R
U+07E4   ߤ   nko letter ha Lo R
U+07E5   ߥ   nko letter wa Lo R
U+07E6   ߦ   nko letter ya Lo R
U+07E7   ߧ   nko letter nya woloso Lo R

     Archaic letters

U+07E8   ߨ   nko letter jona ja Lo R
U+07E9   ߩ   nko letter jona cha Lo R
U+07EA   ߪ   nko letter jona ra Lo R
ref U+07D9   ߙ   nko letter ra (NKo)

     Tone marks

U+07EB   ߫   nko combining short high tone Mn NSM
ref U+0304   ̄   combining macron (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+07EC   ߬   nko combining short low tone Mn NSM
ref U+0303   ̃   combining tilde (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+07ED   ߭   nko combining short rising tone Mn NSM
ref U+0307   ̇   combining dot above (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+07EE   ߮   nko combining long descending tone Mn NSM
ref U+0302   ̂   combining circumflex accent (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+07EF   ߯   nko combining long high tone Mn NSM
U+07F0   ߰   nko combining long low tone Mn NSM
U+07F1   ߱   nko combining long rising tone Mn NSM
U+07F2   ߲   nko combining nasalization mark Mn NSM
ref U+0323   ̣   combining dot below (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+07F3   ߳   nko combining double dot above Mn NSM
ref U+0308   ̈   combining diaeresis (Combining Diacritical Marks)
U+07F4   ߴ   nko high tone apostrophe Lm R
ref U+02BC   ʼ   modifier letter apostrophe (Spacing Modifier Letters)
U+07F5   ߵ   nko low tone apostrophe Lm R
ref U+02BB   ʻ   modifier letter turned comma (Spacing Modifier Letters)

     Symbol

U+07F6   ߶   nko symbol oo dennen So ON

     Punctuation

U+07F7   ߷   nko symbol gbakurunen Po ON
U+07F8   ߸   nko comma Po ON
U+07F9   ߹   nko exclamation mark Po ON

     Letter extender

U+07FA   ߺ   nko lajanyalan Lm R
ref U+005F   _   low line (Basic Latin)
ref U+0640   ـ   Arabic tatweel (Arabic)

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