Temne (also Themne, Timne; ) is a language of the Mel branch of the Niger–Congo language family. Temne speakers live mostly in the Northern Province and Western Area, Sierra Leone. Temne people can be found in a number of other West African countries as well, including Guinea and The Gambia. Some Temnes have also migrated beyond West Africa seeking educational and professional opportunities, especially in Great Britain, and the United States.

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 panis 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.