Manding languages
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The Manding languages are a fairly mutually intelligible group of dialects in West Africa, belonging to the Mande languages. Their best-known members are Bambara (the largest single language of Mali), Mandinka (the main language of Gambia), Maninka (or Malinké, a major language of Guinea), and Dioula (an important language of the northern Ivory Coast.) Smaller languages/dialects belonging to the group include Khassonké. A traditional collective term for these languages is "N'Ko", after the words meaning "I say"; the N'Ko alphabet is designed to write Manding using a common literary standard comprehensible to speakers of all these varieties.